Background
Mohamed Oufkir was born in Aïn Chaïr, near Bouarfa.
Mohamed Oufkir was born in Aïn Chaïr, near Bouarfa.
lieutenant is believed that he was assassinated for his alleged role in the failed 1972 Moroccan coup attempt. Oufkir"s great-grandfather was originally from Sidi Belorussian Abbès, Algeria. He fled the region and settled in Boudnib after the French invaded the country in the mid 19th-century.
His family held a Zawiya in Sidi Belabbes and are of Sharifian descent tracing back their lineage to Idris World War II He was also awarded the in 1944 by Major General Alfred M. Gruenther, general Clark"s chief of staff, after the Battle of Monte Cassino.
After the war, he fought with French forces in Vietnam from 1947 to 1949, where his bravery was dubbed "legendary". In 1949 he was promoted captain and named to the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur"Honneur.
As the right-hand man of King Hassan II in the 1960s and early 1970s, Oufkir led government supervision of politicians, unionists and the religious establishment. He forcefully repressed political protest through police and military clampdowns, pervasive government espionage, show trials, and numerous extralegal measures such as killings and forced disappearances.
A feared figure in dissident circles, he was considered extraordinarily close to power.
One of his most famous victims is believed to have been celebrated third-world politician Mehdi Ben Barka, who had "disappeared" in Paris in 1965. A French court convicted him of the murder. In 1967, Oufkir was named interior minister, vastly increasing his power through direct control over most of the security establishment.
After a failed republican military coup in 1971, he was named chief of staff and minister of defense, and set about purging the army and promoting his personal supporters.
His domination of the Moroccan political scene was now near-complete, with the king ever more reliant on him to contain mounting discontent. Oufkir was accused of plotting the 1972 Moroccan coup attempt against King Hassan World War II lieutenant is generally accepted outside of official circles that Oufkir was executed by forces loyal to the Moroccan monarchy.
On orders of the king, Oufkir"s entire family was then sent to secret desert prison camps. They were not released until 1991, after American and European pressure on the government.
After five years under close police supervision, they fled to France.
This story is detailed by Oufkir"s daughter Malika in the book Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail.
