A retired Moroccan police officer has filed a complaint in the Paris Court of Appeal against the judge who accused him of playing a central role in the kidnapping and disappearance of Moroccan dissident Mehdi Ben Barka in 1965.
Former Moroccan civil servant, Miloud Tounzi, 81, pleads that Patrick Ramaël, the judge who for ten years presided over the case of Mehdi Ben Barka has wrongfully accused Tounzi of having been the commander of the operation that kidnapped and tortured Ben Barka, France Inter reports.
Ramaël has for years accused Tounzi of being the real person behind Larbi Chtouki, sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in 1967. Chtouki has appeared several times in the preparations for the kidnapping of the exiled socialist leader.
In his 2015 book, Ramaël, who claimed that he made the association between Miloud Tounzi and Larbi Chtouki through handwriting analysis, wrote that the civil servant confessed to the accusations before Morocco’s Reconciliation Committee.
” This hearing never took place, it’s not true! ” Claims Tounzi’s lawyer.
“The judge would never have had any evidence, any serious and concordant clue during his investigation,” he said.
Ramaël’s lawyer said his client based his statements about Tounzi’s confession on a Moroccan press article that claimed Tounzi met with the Reconciliation committee and admitted to being Chtouki.
“My client tried to recover this report but there was a refusal from the Moroccan authorities”, said Ramaël’s lawyer.
In 2007, Ramaël filed arrest warrants against several Moroccan suspects allegedly involved in the disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka, including Tounzi.
The judge’s arrest warrants were strategically leaked in 2007 by Ben Barka’s family lawyer Maurice Butin around the time the then president of France Nicolas Sarkozy was on an official visit to Morocco to TV channel France 3 which broadcasted a report on the case as the President was setting foot in Morocco.
In 2014, Tounzi filed a lawsuit against Butin for breach of professional secrecy.
Butin was acquitted by the French justice and the arrest warrants were dropped.
add your comment
Terms of publication : Not to offend the writer, people, sacred things, or attack religions or the divine self, and refrain from racist incitement and insults.