Leader of Morocco’s anti-French resistance dies at 97

By Mohamed al-Tahiri

RABAT (AA) - Mohamed Ajar, a prominent resistance leader during France’s decades-long occupation of Morocco, died Wednesday in Casablanca at the age of 97, according to sources close to him.

Affectionately known as “Said Bonaeilat”, Ajar had been receiving treatment at a Casablanca hospital for more than a month when he passed away.

Ajar was born in 1920 in the town of Tafraout in Morocco’s southern Sous region.

At the age of ten, he joined his father in Casablanca, where he found work doing various odd jobs.

While in Casablanca, he joined the local resistance against the French occupation, at which point he first began using his well-known nom du guerre, Said Bonaeilat.

In 1944, Ajar joined the Istiqlal Party -- Morocco’s first political party -- before helping to establish the National Union of Popular Forces (NUPF), which broke away from the Istiqlal Party in the mid-1950s.

In 1956, after 44 years of French occupation, Morocco regained its political independence.

In the same year, Ajar -- along with several colleagues from the NUPF -- was accused of “conspiring” against Morocco’s crown prince, who would later become King Hassan II (father of the current king, Mohammed VI).

After being sentenced to death by the Moroccan authorities, he departed the country for Spain.

In 1969, Madrid handed him back to Morocco, where he was imprisoned for several years before eventually being released.