Former Ben Barka Case Judge Faces Trial, Claims Moroccan Interference

Prosecuted by Miloud Tounzi, a former Moroccan civil servant, the former investigating judge Patrick Ramaël, who was in charge of the Ben Barka case for 10 years, appeared before the 17th chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal on May 19, 2022. At the bar, he charges Miloud Tounzi: "Everyone knows that Miloud Tounzi was hiding under his agent’s name, Larbi Chtouki, sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in 1967. It was indeed Tounzi who led the commando that kidnapped, tortured and made Mehdi Ben Barka’s body disappear." The two French and Moroccan lawyers for the civil party refute this and claim that the judge never had any serious and consistent evidence or clues during his investigation, reports France Inter. "It’s lamentable, it’s a moral assassination," they fume.

The lawyer for the former investigating judge assures that his client was no longer managing the file in 2015, the year he had published a book on the case by taking up certain press articles. He assures that Patrick Ramaël only cited a Moroccan press article referring to Miloud Tounzi’s confessions before a special commission in Morocco, the equivalent of the "Truth and Reconciliation" commissions in South Africa, which has never been sued in court. "This hearing never took place, it’s false!" cries the French lawyer for Miloud Tounzi. "It’s lamentable..." "Let’s talk about it," retorts the defender of Patrick Ramaël. "My client tried to recover this report but there was a refusal from the Moroccan authorities."

For Patrick Ramaël, the Moroccan monarchy "would be behind these defamation proceedings," because it "tried in vain to attack him for violation of the secrecy of the investigation." The magistrate justifies these statements by the facts that have offended the Moroccan monarchy, in particular the arrest warrants he had issued a few days before an official visit to Morocco by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a trip to Morocco where he had taken the GPS coordinates of the site of the former secret prison in Rabat, the PF3. Mehdi Ben Barka’s head could have been buried near this place, he believes. The verdict is expected on June 23.