French Trial
In the 1960s Ben Barka's disappearance was enough of a "scandale public" that President De Gaulle formally declared his government had not been responsible. After trial in 1967, two French officers were sent to prison for their role in the kidnapping. However, the judge ruled that the main guilty party was Moroccan interior minister Mohamed Oufkir. Georges Figon, a witness with a criminal background who had testified earlier that Oufkir stabbed Ben Barka to death, was later found dead, officially a suicide. Prefect of Police Maurice Papon (1910–2007), later convicted for crimes against humanity for his role under Vichy, was forced to resign following Ben Barka's kidnapping.
Read more about this topic: Mehdi Ben Barka, Theories On The Disappearance of Ben Barka
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or trial:
“The terrible tabulation of the French statists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to exact numerical ratios. If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty thousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or marries his grandmother.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)