Ex-political prisoner in Morocco dies

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Ex-political prisoner in Morocco dies
By JOHN THORNE, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago


RABAT, Morocco - Driss Benzekri, a former political prisoner who later headed a truth commission in Morocco, has died, a former colleague and fellow detainee said Monday. He was 57.

Benzekri died here Sunday of complications from stomach cancer, said Abdelhamid Amin, a former president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights.

Benzekri was president of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission, founded in 2004 by Morocco's King Mohamed VI to look into past human rights abuses — including under the monarch's father, King Hassan II. It was the first such truth-seeking body in the Arab world and has been praised as a model for other Arab countries confronting dark pasts.

Benzekri, a former Marxist, was one of many Moroccans illegally detained, imprisoned, tortured, or forcibly "disappeared" by state security forces from the 1950s to the 1990s. The commission put the number of victims in the hundreds; most human rights activists say it is in the thousands.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070521/ap_on_re_af/obit_benzekri