USFP Dismisses Claims of Moroccan Opposition Leader Ben Barka’s Alleged Espionage

The USFP reacted to The Guardian article entitled "Moroccan opposition leader Mehdi Ben Barka was a spy, Cold War files suggest" through the columns of its newspaper Al Ittihadi Al Ichtiraki. According to the party’s daily, the English newspaper did not bring anything new to what had already been published in 2007 by the French magazine l’Express. These allegations are also far from convincing the court that ruled on the case of Ben Barka’s disappearance and which consulted the 1,500 documents in the StB archives, the USFP says.

"The French judicial authority did not find any document bearing the traces of the martyr such as audio recordings, handwritten manuscript, signature... etc." According to this court, these allegations are not serious or reliable. The newspaper points out that no official of the Czechoslovak intelligence services has confirmed these accusations, while since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the secret agents of these countries are not bound by the duty of confidentiality.

The USFP also specifies that "The Guardian did not qualify Mehdi Ben Barka as a spy by treating him as a liaison officer who, in the lexicon of the time, designates a personality with whom one exchanges opinions".