SURPRISE IN PARIS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31196, 21 October 1966, Page 11

SURPRISE IN PARIS

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright) PARIS, Oct. 20. The Moroccan Minister of Information, Mr Abdelmajid Benjelloun, flew to Paris today to help to defend his country’s deputy security chief, Colonel Ahmed Dlimi, alleged to be one of the masterminds behind the Ben Barka kidnapping. He was accompanied by the former Interior Minister and Supreme Court President. Mr Ahmed Hamiani, and a lawyer. Dlimi—yesterday a major and today a lieutenant-colonel after being promoted by King Hassan—dramatically surren-

dered to French police in Paris yesterday to face charges in connexion with the abduction of the Moroccan Opposition leader, Mehdi Ben Barka. Dlimi and his chief, the Moroccan Interior Minister, General Mohamed Oufkir, were among seven persons being tried in absentia for their part in kidnapping Ben Barka from a crowded Paris boulevard almost a year ago. Six other accused were in custody waiting to hear the court’s judgment which was expected last night But Dlimi’s smiling appearance in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice yesterday afternoon brought the elaborate sixweek trial to a prompt end. Soon after, the presiding judge, Mr Jean Perez, ordered a fresh trial but did not specify a date. He also provisionally released two of the

accused —a police drug squad official, Roger Voitot, and a journalist, Phillipe Bernier — who were both let out of prison last night. Meanwhile, Dlimi, who slipped out of Casablanca on a night flight on Monday, was taken to the city’s Le Sante gaol—and he can expect to remain there for a considerable time.

Long procedural delays are expected to hold up the case. According to justice officials, Dlimi has appealed to the French Supreme Court against an order that he should be tried by an assize court. He was basing his appeal on a Franco-Moroccan judicial convention, which he claimed, forbids his trial by a French court.

A question which now has to be solved is whether the supplementary judicial inquiry into the Ben Barka affair—a necessary preliminary to the re-trial--can be started before the Supreme Court has ruled on Dlinti’s appeal.