ARREST OF FRENCH SECRET AGENT IS PREDICTED IN BEN BARKA CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100360005-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: February 9, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

WASHINGTON POST
A RC-ftor Release 2001/07/26 IQIA-FEQRES-"114 01003
FEB 91966-- M
Arrest of . Tench Secret. Agent
Is Predicted in Ben Barka Case
By Waverley Root
llillilb, c arse e
Roy, (alias Finville, a top-se-
cret operative of the French
counter - espionage services,
has admitted so much prior
knowledge of the Ben Barka
kidnaping that editorialists
are predicting openly today
that he will be arrested for
complicity in the affair.
But Finville walked out of
tho office of examining magis-
trate LouisLollinger late last
night still a free man.
Finville said that the two
long days of piercing ques-
tioning had affected his heart,
and he applied for entrance to
the miltary Val de Grace Hos-
pital for treatment.
The kidnaping, followed
perhaps by the murder, of
Moroccan opposition leader
Mehdi Bon Barka took place
in Paris on Oct. 29. So far the
person most deeply implicat-
ed In it had been Antoine Lo-
pez,. an. agent of the Secret
Services of Foreign Documen-
tation and Counter-Espionage,
the French CIA.
Lo,pz' n"1:ew of the plan to
kidnap Ben Barka in Advance,
eeruite two French police- become public, pre-dated, and
ent to pick him up and turn placed in the files to hide his,
iirn over to toughs allegedly negligence.
n the pay of the Moroccan ? Ile had withheld what he
nterior Minister, . Gen. Mo- knew from the legal authori-
ties and even other police
amed Oufkir, and then with" services. When the police Pre-
eld his information about fecture telephoned him to ask
he crime from the authorities to be put in touch with, the
nvestigating the case. officer who was handling the
Ben Barka case, he answered
Lopez maintained that he that no one was dealing with
as working under Finville's it in the counterespionage,
nti.l the mm?nthon question-!was assigned to it.
g in ,he .t;rn of Lopez' The fact that Finville did
F. ov n .;Meuse and
Fnot tell his superiors ap?
Finville admitted that:
? He had been informed
lan to kidnap Ben Barka, had
rdercd Lopez to remain in
ouch with the affair and had
nown about its progress as it
ook place, but had done noth'-
g to prevent it.
? He had not informed his
J?as planned. He admitted
I ceret agency's files, dated
et. 12, which had previously
een presented as evidence
at he had done so, as.?stand-
rd official practice dem.and-
>fy himself ' after the case had
parently lets higher-ups off
the hook-at least so far 'as
this particular organization is
concerned-but takes respon-,
sibllity pretty high up in pin-i
ning it on Finville.
He has an assimilated rank
of general, and was so secret,
a higher operative that he had
never been photographed.
newspapers and magazines
running layouts of those in-:
volved in the scandal had tot
print a blank rectangle where'
Finville's picture should have
been.
The photographers got to
h'im last night, and now every-,
body has his photograph. This
reduces his value as a top-se-
cret agent, but that is_a detail
now. Finville's career is fin-
ished anyway:; , ,
FOIAb3b
Approved For Release 2001/07/26 CIA-RDP75-00149R000100360005-0