The Abduction of Mehdi Ben Barka

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2016

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

In 1965 French agents in Paris helped kidnap and disappear Mehdi Ben Barka, a Moroccan dissident and global left-wing activist. He was taken to a villa in Paris where it is believed he was murdered by Moroccan security officials. His body has never been found. The case became a national scandal in France. The BBC's Alex Last hears from Bachir Ben Barka, who is still fighting to find out what really happened to his father. Photo: Mehdi Ben Barka (AP)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC BBC.
0:02.0	BBC.
0:05.0	Hello and thank you for downloading witness from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last.
0:10.0	And today we go back to October 1965 and the abduction in Paris of the Moroccan
0:17.4	dissident Mecht-Benbarker and a scandal that shocked France.
0:22.6	He represented a threat.
0:29.7	He represented a threat for the Moroccan regime. But more than anything he represented hope for the Moroccan people, a possibility of change and renewal.
0:42.0	In October 1965 one of Africa's most prominent left-wing leaders was abducted from the streets of Paris and was never seen again.
0:52.0	His name was Mehti Ben Barker and he was a Moroccan dissident and this was no ordinary crime. It became an international
1:00.9	scandal.
1:01.9	It's political dynamite in France. It's brought to light
1:05.0	some of the activities of the French secret police who are alleged to have taken part
1:09.6	in the kidnapping of Benbaka at midday in the center of Paris.
1:13.4	According to an alleged eyewitness account, Benbarker, the exiled leader of the opposition in Morocco,
1:18.8	was taken by two plainclothes policemen to a villa not far from Paris, where he was beaten up by a
1:25.0	a villa not far from Paris where he was beaten up by a Moroccan agent.
1:26.0	No one seems any nearer the truth as to what did happen to the unfortunate Ben Barker.
1:30.0	Is he dead?
1:32.0	While in his 30s the intellectual Mer de Ben Barker had been a leading figure in the Moroccan independence
1:37.9	movement which saw the country emerge from French colonial rule in the 1950s. He then became the leader of the left-wing
1:45.4	opposition, an opponent in chief to the authoritarian regime of Morocco's King Hassan
1:51.6	II, a regime that was backed by France.
	...

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