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A native of Rabat and the son of a grocer, Mehdi Ben Barka had been active in politics from the age of 14, when he joined a Moroccan independence movement. For a time he was a tutor to Hassan, then the country's Crown Prince. After Morocco gained its independence, Ben Barka's friendship with Hassan turned sour as he moved leftward in his politics and eventually headed Morocco's political opposition. In 1963, he was elected president of the National Consultative Assembly. Ben Barka later fled into exile in Algeria, and was condemned to death in absentia, allegedly for taking part in a plot against Hassan's life.
Even though Ben Barka moved from Algeria to Geneva, he was still considered a threat by Hassan. "This man disturbs me," the King frequently said of Ben Barka. As chief of national security, Interior Minister Oufkir launched "Operation Ben Barka"—at first to keep track of the leftist dissident, but then to murder him. Working with French intelligence agents, Oufkir was able to lure Ben Barka from Geneva to Paris on a plausible but phony pretext: that Director Georges Franju (Head Against the Walls, Red Nights) wanted to make a film documentary about decolonization. Ben Barka was to meet Franju for lunch at the Brasserie Lipp when he was accosted by the two agents.
These men drove Ben Barka to the villa in Fontenay-le-Vicomte, which was owned by Georges ("Jo") Boucheseiche, a small-time hood and bordello operator who also worked for the SDECE. About 30 men guarded the villa where Ben Barka was imprisoned.
Word that Ben Barka had been kidnaped was flashed to Rabat by Ahmed Dlimi, Oufkir's deputy for intelligence operations, who had surreptitiously entered France in order to supervise the first stage of "Operation Ben Barka." Oufkir immediately went to France; his cover story for leaving Rabat was that he intended to visit Switzerland, where his children were in school.
The second night after his capture, Ben Barka was confronted in a bedroom of the villa by Interior Minister Oufkir and by two other Moroccans. All three carried pistols. "Who gave you the authorization for what you are doing?" Ben Barka demanded angrily. Replied Oufkir: "We are here in the name of our master and for the sake of Morocco." For several minutes, the three Moroccans carried on a loud argument with their prisoner. Then one of them said: "Let's finish this comedy. You were sentenced to death in Morocco. Now you're going to get it." At that a shot rang out and Ben Barka fell dying. He was hastily buried at the villa. Afterward, Oufkir flew to Switzerland for his family visit and the other officials returned by roundabout routes to Morocco. According to TIME'S sources, two of the agents present at the murder returned to France and supervised the reburial of Ben Barka's corpse.
Two months after Ben Barka's disappearance, French police in the course of their investigation searched the villa's garden. Of course, they did not find the body, which by then was lying in its grave on the Il de la Grande Jatte.