Word: oufkirs
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THIS remarkable story of political intrigue-so similar in plan to the abortive coup that General Oufkir led against the Moroccan monarch himself two weeks ago-was recalled by King Hassan last week as he told of his narrow escape from the aerial attack on his plane. When three Moroccan air force F-5s opened fire on the King's Boeing 727 jetliner over the Mediterranean, Hassan related, it was this scene with Oufkir that flashed across his mind "immediately, just like a film...
Hassan had summoned newsmen to the Royal Guest Palace to reveal details of the attempted midair regicide. The King portrayed his Defense Minister, whom he had considered his most loyal supporter, as a chronic plotter of palace intrigue. Earlier, Hassan had claimed bitterly that he had protected Oufkir "beyond all reasonable bounds," and had even "endangered our relations with France" when he refused to extradite Oufkir for the Paris kidnaping and presumed murder in 1965 of Moroccan Leftist Mehdi Ben Barka...
King's Confidence. At the very time that Oufkir was proposing the assassination of Gaddafi he was already plotting the attack on Hassan, according to the King. The scheme, in fact, was hatched only four days after army cadets stormed the King's summer palace last July. If Oufkir had a hand in that affair, it was never revealed. But he kept the King's confidence by ordering the summary execution of ten high-ranking officers (who, had they lived, might have implicated...
...Oufkir's error this time, said Hassan, had been "to think he could commit the perfect crime." The plot was later described to the King by two of the captured airmen. One of the pilots, Lieut. Colonel Mohammed Amekrane-who suffers from an incurable kidney ailment-disclosed the details after Hassan coldly reminded him that if military justice did not finish him off, his illness would. As Hassan related it, the plan called for the plane to be shot down at sea "so as to leave no trace." With the deaths of the King, three of his children...
...when Oufkir saw the King's Boeing 727 land safely on the runway, he apparently lost his nerve. "It's not possible," Hassan quoted him as saying. "It must be another airplane." Without waiting to see the King, Oufkir drove to army headquarters. "From that moment," said Hassan, "I began to wonder what was going...