Mehidi Ben Barka

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Mehidi Ben Barka (b. 1920 Rabat, Morocco died 1965? Paris, France) was a Moroccan politician. Barka was born to a civil servant and became the first Moroccan to get a degree in mathematics in 1950. He became a prominent member of the Moroccan opposition and reportedly supported Algeria over Morocco during the 1963 Moroccan invasion of that country, which led to decades of tense relations between the two states. Barka was a major figure in the Third World movement and supported revoltionary action in various states. During the 1960's, the governments of Morocco, the USA, and French enacted savage repression of dissidents and Barka was no exception. On October 29, 1965, Barka was "disappeared" by French police officers and never seen again. In 1976, the US government, due to request made by the Freedom of Information Act, acknowlaged that the CIA was in possession of some 1,800 documents involving Barka, but the documents were not released. A former member of the Moroccan secret service, Ahmed Boukhari revealed in 2001 that Barka had died during interrogation in a villa south of Paris. He said Barka's body was then taken back to Morocco and destroyed in a vat of acid.