FRANCE SURPRISE WITNESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100350012-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: October 28, 1966
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Release 2001/ 6" ltl
CPYRGHT FRANCE
Surprise Witness
Who kidnaped e t en a~ r a: t
is almost exactly a year since the d -
minutive exiled Moroccan leftist lea -
er vanished from a street in Sain -
Germain-des-Pres. For the past seven I
weeks the knotty mystery of his disa
pcarance has been unraveling in a Par
court. All the evidence confirms t
likelihood that he stepped willingly int
a black Peugeot and was whisked t
a villa in a Paris suburb because h
P
DLIMI UNDER ARREST
Brilliant ploy.
believed that envoys of his old politic.1
enemy, Morocco's King Hassan 11, we
trying to contact him with an offer t > ~
return home for a reconciliation wit
the King. Ben Barka was later hande
over to two Moroccans at the villa an i
was never seen again.
In the dock were five Frcncnmc
-a journalist, two policemen an I
two secret agents-and one small-tim
Moroccan. police operative. All wai
charged with either participation
complicity in the kidnaping. The tw
most wanted men were out of reach cif
French law. They were Morocco's Ii
terior Minister Brigadier General M
hamed Oufkir and his deputy for secre
police matters, Ahmed Dlimi. Wi
nesses named them as the Moroccans
who had met Ben Barka at the villi.
King Hassan flatly refused to hand them
over for trial. In fact, he had bee
working feverishly behind the scenes t
block the proceedings. Emissaries ha l
approached Charles de Gaulle himsel
pleading that the affair would put
blight on Franco-Moroccan relation
Hassan argued' in vain, for De Gaull
;
ta00149RAp010g350Qr7 3
ra1_l_U l l I I 't-Y -lull. ~
an himself decided to intervene, and
e chose an ingenious way to do it..
ast week Dlimi, his secret-police aide,
oarded a Royal Air Maroc Caravelle
n Casablanca and flew-suitably dis-
uised and with a fake passport-to
aris. The next afternoon, just as the
rial of the six defendants was drawing
o a close, Dlimi calmly showed up at
he court and surrendered to French
~_ithoritics.
was a brilliant ploy. The trial had
rogresscd beyond the point where new
cstimony could conveniently be intro-
uced; yet no court could ignore this
urprise witness. Accepting the prose-
ution's motion, the judge ordered a
ew trial, This, of course, would need
tonths to prepare-if it ever took
lace. Rumors spread that Charles de
aulle might be less than happy to
ave the trial commence again, since
limi might name the anonymous high-
anking French officials who, accord-
ng to trial witnesses, gave the go-ahead
or French police and security agents
o cooperate in catching Ben Barka for
he Moroccans.
VIP Treatment. Nor was there any'
ssurance that Dlimi himself would ever
ace a French judge. No sooner had he
urrendered than a bevy of Hassan's
and-picked lawyers arrived in Paris to
ile a motion with France's Supreme
ourt invoking the Franco-Moroccan
udicial convention of 1956. Under that
grecment, French and Moroccan na-
ionals must be tried in their national
ourts for offenses committed in the
ther country. It would also be months
efore the French court could rule on
hat motion. In the meantime, Dlimi
as comfortably ensconced in a VIP
ell at Paris' Santo Prison, and l'a,(/aire
en Barka was whore King Hassan
anted it-hopelessly enmeshed in end-
ess legal tangles._ ,_ _ .......
Approved For Release 2001107126 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000100350012-3