The Ben Barka Affair: At 75, Bachir Refuses to Give Up and Demands the Truth About an Unresolved Political Crime

On October 29, 1965, Bachir was only 15 years old when his father was apprehended in front of the Lipp brasserie, on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, by two men flashing a French police card. Mehdi Ben Barka was then taken to a villa in the Paris region before disappearing forever, recalls France 3. Since then, no trace of his body has been found, leaving room for the most sordid hypotheses, ranging from dissolution in an acid vat to burial in a forest, or even the repatriation of his head to Morocco. For his son, these rumors were only intended to mislead justice.

A judicial file open for sixty years

For Bachir Ben Barka, there is no doubt that the death of his father is a political crime. He directly points to the responsibility of the Moroccan state of the time to put an end to the activities of the opponent, with the "complicity of the French state and the Israeli and American intelligence services". Last year, he tried to relaunch the case by addressing an open letter to King Mohammed VI and President Emmanuel Macron, a letter that remained unanswered.

Despite the passage of time, he remains hopeful in justice. The file, one of the oldest still under investigation, has seen fourteen investigating judges come and go since the first complaint filed by his uncle sixty years ago. Today, Bachir Ben Barka is multiplying conferences through his institute to keep the memory of his father alive, motivated by a major fear: that his own grandchildren will be forced to take up this heavy torch if the truth does not come to light during his lifetime.