Summary
Moroccan opposition leader whose assassination in Paris in 1965, with Israeli Mossad technical help, is told in Moshe Zonder’s article reproduced in Appendix 4 of Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.530-532).
Details
- A mathematician, Ben-Barka called for abrogating the monarchy of King Hassan II and converting Morocco into a popular republic; convicted in absentia of treason in July 1963, he lived in exile and attacked the industrialized states that robbed Third World resources and cheap manpower (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.530).
- Morocco decided to liquidate him; Oufkir and Dlimi led the team. On 27 September 1965 Dlimi reported to the Mossad that Ben-Barka was on his way to France from Cuba, that private French citizens would liquidate him, and that the French security services knew and were not opposed (PDF p.530).
- On 1 October [1965; text copy prints “1956”] the Moroccans asked Israel for a safe-house in Paris and five foreign passports; Meir Amit and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol decided in the affirmative, Amit reporting on 5 November: “The Moroccans have liquidated Ben-Barka. Israel had no physical connection to the act itself”, while his summary claimed Israel did “a little more than we thought” but stayed within a line of “technical help only” (PDF p.531).
- De Gaulle, who had met Ben-Barka, was livid that a man he had conferred with was murdered on French soil with French secret service cooperation; Mossad people were later expelled from Paris (PDF p.532).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Meir Amit, Levi Eshkol, Yuval Ne’eman