France-Cameroon: how the killer of the independentist Félix Moumié escaped justice

FMM Graphic Studio

By: Florence Morice Follow

26 min

On November 3, 1960, the Cameroonian independent, Félix Moumié, died in a hospital in Geneva, as a result of poisoning.

Suspect number 1: French spy William Bechtel, former hero soldier of the Resistance, who became a secret service reservist.

The evidence which accuses him are numerous, but the Swiss justice concludes with a dismissal.

How was Private Bechtel saved?

60 years later, RFI investigated and searched the archives.

Publicity

(Replay of November 3, 2020)

It is an autumn evening, in Geneva, on October 15, 1960. Félix Moumié goes up a cobbled alley in the old town.

And pushes open the door of a chic restaurant, Plat d'Argent, where he has a date for dinner.

The man who invited him is called William Bechtel.

He presents himself as a journalist close to auticolonialist circles, and had already approached the independence leader in Ghana a few months earlier.

Félix Moumié chairs the UPC, the Union of the populations of Cameroon, the spearhead of the anti-colonial struggle in the country.

In January 1960, Cameroon officially gained independence.

But for the UPC, it is only facade.

The party disputes the legitimacy of the new president

Ahmadou Ahidjo

dubbed by Paris.

The war that France has waged under General de Gaulle against the UPC since 1955 continues.

Geneva, deemed neutral in these times of the Cold War, is the city of refuge for many anti-colonialist leaders.

Félix Moumié stays there to make contacts, raise funds, support, and weapons.

It also seeks to gain visibility.

William Bechtel knows this and promises him interviews and articles on his party's resistance.

But the alleged journalist is in fact a secret agent.

During dinner, Félix Moumié is poisoned with thallium, poured into his Pernod.

FMM Graphic Studio

In this winter of 1960, the Cameroonian leader frightened France.

His diplomatic action is disturbing,

 " says historian Karine Ramondy (1), author of a book on the subject.

Paris, which continues its massacres, wants to " 

end

 " with the UPC, and takes a dim view of the activism of this " 

media agitator

 ", who takes advantage of his forced exile to forge links with China, the Ghanaian Kwame Nkrumah and the Congolese Patrice Lumumba.

Unlike Um Nyobè, reclusive in the maquis of Cameroonian forests - where France assassinated him in 1958 - Félix Moumié travels a lot, in an attempt to legitimize his party's fight internationally.

He is even preparing to launch a provisional Cameroonian government.

It is the man to be slaughtered

 ", concludes the historian.

To (re) listen: Assassinated leaders, from Lumumba to Um Nyobe

The trap

: thallium in Pernod

But the plan does not go as planned.

The day after dinner, Félix Moumié planned to fly to Conakry.

It is only there, in theory, that the first symptoms of its poisoning should appear, far from any scientific police and from Switzerland.

But Félix Moumié fell ill the same night: paralysis and a feeling of cold.

He rushes to the hospital.

The plane that was to take him to Africa leaves without him.

Upon hearing this, William Bechtel hastily disappears.

For Felix Moumié, it is the beginning of a long and painful agony, which stretches until November 3.

Before sinking into a coma, the independentist, a trained doctor, succeeded in alerting the intern on duty in a final moment of lucidity: " 

Thallium

 ", " 

Poisoning

 ", " 

Red hand

 ", the name given to " 

La French services' killing machine

 of the time.

A few days later, in an interview with RTS, Swiss television, Ernest Ouandié, fellow combatant of Félix Moumié, publicly implicates Paris in this crime: “ 

The French government bears a heavy responsibility.

It is on that side that we must look.

We have evidence that we will assert in due course,

 ”he asserts.

The interview will be censored.

The troubled role of "

Madame X

"

The Geneva police investigation began on October 31, fifteen days already after the poisoning.

Too late to question Félix Moumié.

She will first take an interest in the role considered cloudy of a certain Liliane Frily, baptized "Madame X" in the newspapers of the time.

At the hospital, this pretty brunette presented herself as the “wife” of Félix Moumié.

It is in fact a prostitute, met in a bar in August, according to a police report.

It is in his room that the independentist spends the night following the poisoning, at 44 rue des Pâquis, at the Pacific, a brothel.

During the independentist's stay in Switzerland, she was seen everywhere by his side, says Frank Garbely, director of a documentary on this assassination, released in 2008 (2): “ 

They spent several days in Gstaad, a place for tourists. wealthy at the time, but also went to the Chinese embassy, ​​to the East German embassy in Bern, and spent a whole week going to meet people to buy weapons.

Every time, she was there,

 ”he says, astonished that the independentist who knew he was nevertheless well threatened, placed such confidence in this young prostitute.

“ 

I consider it a serious political mistake

 ,” he said. 

He endangered not only his life, but also his movement.

 "

FMM Graphic Studio

According to the Swiss police, it is Liliane that William Bechtel calls to fix the meeting of the dinner which will be fatal to Felix Moumié… Did she know then that she was acting on behalf of the French secret services or was she manipulated?

The story does not say.

There remains his astonishing reconversion, as director of a private clinic for wealthy seniors, according to the director's survey.

“ 

How could a prostitute from the poor districts of Geneva afford to buy a private clinic

?

Where does the money come from

?

It's still very cloudy,

 ”says Frank Garbely.

To (re) listen

: The assassination of Félix Moumié

Overwhelming evidence found at William Bechtel's home

It was only a month after the poisoning, on November 17, that William Bechtel's home was finally searched, 13 rue du Petit-Senn in Chêne-Bourg, on the outskirts of Geneva.

Time has passed.

Bechtel is already far away.

But according to the police report, investigators make edifying discoveries, the panoply of the perfect spy: a back door, at the back, allowing easy access to the French border, evidence of spinning, including photos, including the sympathetic ink analysis reveals the targets that the agent was watching and tracking: Félix Moumié but also FLN officials, such as the Algerian Ferhat Abbas, documents explaining how to kill a man without leaving any traces (3).

But also, little bits of thallium, in the pocket of one of his jackets, and plans evoking in a coded but detailed way, the scenario of the poisoning at the restaurant Le Plat d'Argent.

Bechtel officially becomes suspect number 1.

On December 15, 1960, the examining magistrate Dinichert issued an international arrest warrant against William Bechtel.

In a press release, he evokes " 

very serious suspicions

 " and " 

important clues to his charge

 ".

The spy was protected

Records also reveal that as early as 1958 William Bechtel had been reported as dangerous in the country (1)

.

In June 1960, the Bern police had even unmasked the bogus journalist in his secret activities, caught spying on a Bernese lawyer specializing in the defense of Algerian separatists.

At the time, Bern reported it to the Geneva police chief Charles Knecht.

But the two men are old acquaintances.

The spy is not worried.

“ 

Bechtel benefited from its protection, there is no doubt about it,

 ” says historian Karine Ramondy.

“ 

He facilitated his escape, when the situation had escalated and William Bechtel was in danger of being arrested.

 "

FMM Graphic Studio

Unsurprisingly, the French police are hardly more efficient.

Judge Dinichert seizes her to find William Bechtel.

In vain.

Its report, available for consultation in the archives of Berne.

It looks more like a form of alibi investigation than a real investigation 

," notes historian Marc Perrenoud.

We follow the directions, we go to the places where it could be and then we leave.

That's all.

To let the investigation fall into oblivion.

 "

In their book

La Piscine

, devoted to the secret services, Pascal Krop and Roger Faligot affirm that he was in fact " 

put in the green

 " in a villa on the Côte d'Azur by the French services.

The case might never have been reopened, if 14 years later, in August 1974, William Bechtel had not made the awkwardness of going to Belgium to a veterans reunion.

The Interpol warrant issued in 1960 is still running.

Belgian police stop him at the border.

The spy is extradited to Switzerland.

The Bechtel affair that everyone thought was buried resurfaces in Geneva on the front page of the press.

We are astonished at the " 

defeated look

 " of this 80 year old man, " 

thin

 " and " 

limping

 ".

We note his " 

sharp

 " look, under the appearance of a peaceful retiree.

He, the chemist by training who, before joining the secret services, had distinguished himself by his " 

admirable dedication

 " during the two world wars.

Nicknamed the “ 

Grand Bill

 ”, hero of the Resistance, the 4th man to join General de Gaulle in exile.

“ 

He joined the Free French Forces on June 27, 1940. He will participate in very difficult campaigns, campaign in Syria, Libya, Hakeim, Indochina.

He will also participate in Operation Sussex

: parachuted into France on April 9, 1944, he provided crucial information for the liberation of Rouen, despite a fracture of the neck of the femur when it was landed.

This partly explains the support from which he will subsequently benefit in his activities as an honorable correspondent,

 ”reports Karine Ramondy.

"

Save

" Private Bechtel

Me Marc Bonnant, a young lawyer, appointed to defend him, quickly understood the value of the support capital in the Gaullist and ex-combatant networks from which his client benefited who, if he spoke little, never failed to during audiences to wear his legion of honor in his buttonhole.

This support goes back to the French president at the time, recalls Marc Bonnant: “ 

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had received letters from a certain number of high dignitaries of the Legion of Honor and veterans who wrote saying

:

"Our comrade Bechtel is in jails in Switzerland, it is unbearable. He is a fighter from the beginning".

These letters arrived on the examining magistrate's desk and I pleaded them by saying

"here is the man of honor that I am defending ..." ", recalls the lawyer.

In one of these letters, the signatories, including Jules Muracciole, Secretary General of the Order of the Liberation, denounce a " 

staging intended, to accuse

 " Bechtel.

Knowing that he has "a 

well-made and very cold head

 ", they " 

cannot believe

 ", they write, " 

if he had been guilty, that he had forgotten in his flag on the Franco-Swiss border, a dossier on Moumié, and traces of poison on his jacket,

 ”according to an article by journalist Vincent Hutter, which echoed it at the time.

Chance or not?

William Bechtel is finally released on bail in exchange for 10,000 Swiss francs.

His lawyer Marc Bonnant has no difficulty in bringing them together.

His comrades, his friends have acted so that the necessary money flows to me, through dozens of anonymous donors

 ."

Has France paid?

The modesty of the sums collected gives me to believe that it is not simply the State which signed a check, but individuals aroused, implemented, by the State and by solidarity of struggle and fight

 ", the lawyer answers.

We imagine that these are personalities who had a common destiny with him

, estimates the historian Karine Ramondy,

and who saw in the elimination of Félix Moumié a patriotic act of preservation of the interests of France

 ".

The mobilization of the friends of the Liberation

In an interview book published in 2008 (4), General Aussarresses, a former eminent member of the SDECE (External documentation and counter-espionage service), the ancestor of the DGSE, went so far as to assert that the friends of William Bechtel, survivors of the Sussex network, had drawn up several plans to escape the secret agent from his prison.

But Bechtel is now free and joins his wife who is waiting for him in Paris.

We had to wait another 5 years, so that in 1980, in the winter, the case finally arrived before the indictment chamber.

William Bechtel risks the assizes.

This time the lawyer, Marc Bonnant will seek “help” in Paris.

He was received by Charles Pasqua, future Minister of the Interior of Jacques Chirac, and Robert Pandraud, his right-hand man.

“ 

The charge against William Bechtel was to have assassinated Moumié as a secret agent, and therefore to have acted on the orders of the French political authorities.

It was a political assassination

 ”, justifies the lawyer today.

“ 

Pasqua and Pandraud told me that they took the measure of the problem and that they would do what they had the power to do and which was legitimate for them to do.

Has this resulted in diplomatic interventions?

The file in any case bears no trace of it, 

”he says.

A file which Swiss justice has long responded, including to the widow of Félix Moumié, that it was " 

untraceable

 ", and which it says today that it was " 

destroyed a long time ago

 ".

RFI nevertheless obtained the entirety of the dismissal pronounced on December 8, 1980… That day, the Geneva justice gave up organizing a trial at the assizes for William Bechtel, for lack of evidence according to it.

I was very frustrated, 

" recalls Jean-Noël Cuénod, journalist in the courtroom at the time.

“ 

I told Marc Bonnant.

I don't believe a word of your story.

Bechtel, he's up to his neck.

 "

Extract from the dismissal pronounced by the indictment chamber of Geneva, December 8, 1980, in the case of the assassination of Félix Moumié.

RFI

The argument that supports this non-place is surprising.

The prosecution judge Bernard Bertossa argues among other things that the French secret services would have had " 

no motive

 " to liquidate Félix Moumié.

Extract from the dismissal pronounced by the indictment chamber of Geneva, December 8, 1980, in the case of the assassination of Félix Moumié.

RFI

A mobile, there was!

That's for sure 

”, protests again 40 years later Jean-Noël Cuénod.

“ 

The UPC was seen as a possible very important pawn in the hands of the Soviets, but we are in the middle of the cold war so Cameroon should not fall into the Soviet orbit.

 And the journalist to assassinate.

“ 

They didn't want to sue him.

It really is the impression that it gives

 . "

This dismissal also owes a lot to the talent of lawyer Marc Bonnant.

He manages to return the most damning evidence found at the secret agent's home.

Thallium in his pockets?

Matches contain thallium, in small doses.

But Bechtel is a smoker, argues the lawyer who has scoured all the available literature on this deadly poison.

In the absence of a second opinion on this point, ordered during the investigation, a " 

gap

 ", recognizes the prosecution judge, the argument of the lawyer wins.

As for the calendar, it does not stick, assures Me Bonnant.

It provides the judges with an expertise according to which, in view of the chronology of the symptoms, it would be “ 

highly unlikely

 ” that the poisoning took place on the date of the famous dinner at the Plat d'Argent.

On the subject of the poisoning scenario found in William Bechtel, his reading " 

suggests that the action had to be accomplished by the first-named

" Robert "", notes the judge.

However, this character never appeared, so that, if there was a plan, it could not be carried out

 ", he writes.

For Jean-Noël Cuénod, the reasoning is “ 

a little quick

 ”.

You can easily turn the argument the other way around by making the following objection: maybe this Robert was expected to do the job, but he didn't come for one reason or another.

And it is perhaps Bechtel who took charge at short notice to poison Moumié, perhaps mistaking the doses.

 "

An error in the dose?

The hypothesis, put forward in several press articles at the time, would also explain that the symptoms were triggered the same evening and therefore the supposed inconsistency in the chronology.

But Judge Bertossa ignores these questions.

I do not know if this order was fair, but it was explicit,

 " he told RFI, now retired.

“ 

Now, whether the decision was right or wrong historically is another question.

Unlike an acquittal, a dismissal is not a final decision.

If there had been new facts, we could have come back to them 

”.

It was not the case.

“ 

In my entire career, I have never been pressured by anyone, certainly not from the French secret services 

,” he says.

In his dismissal, he takes all the same care to be surprised in a strange exercise of irony, that the French authorities have " 

curiously proved incapable of finding the trace

 " of a man who " 

appeared among the most most decorated in the country

 ”.

It's a way of saying

 :" we are not fooled. We know that it is France that protected him "", analyzes Jean Noël Cuénod.

But then what if he's innocent?"

Why protect him?

And why does the judge introduce this element in his order?

It's weird 

”.

Extract from the dismissal pronounced by the indictment chamber of Geneva, December 8, 1980, in the case of the assassination of Félix Moumié.

RFI

Weird, maybe, but Bechtel isn't worried anymore.

In the process, his lawyer Me Bonnant is received for the second time in Paris, invited this time " 

by an audience of generals, only very high-ranking officers 

", he says.

“ 

They asked me how to thank myself.

I answered playfully: give me the Legion of Honor.

 "Subsequently, the lawyer tells that Bechtel could not obtain for him this decoration, will send him his own medal of Knight of the Legion of Honor, obtained on May 22, 1945." 

Of course, I do not. have never worn but I have kept it with incredible affection.

 "

Since then, languages ​​have loosened.

In 2008, Maurice Robert, Africa director of the French secret service at the time, claimed partisan of a “ 

radical solution 

” in Cameroon, will be explicit: “ 

Bechtel accused himself of having poisoned Moumié.

The fact that Switzerland was neutral allowed, I would say, a lot of excess. 

".

In December 1980, the time of the dismissal, Marcel Le Roy-Finville, head of the SDECE, spoke of the “ 

brutal elimination

 ” of Moumié by the Action department.

(5) “ 

A few months later, it was Paul Grossin, the big boss of the SDECE at the time (External documentation and counter-espionage service), the ancestor of the DGSE, who recounts the scene in detail. 'poisoning.

(...) In a few words, Jacques Foccart himself -

then secretary general of the Élysée for African and Malagasy affairs with General de Gaulle

-

had not hidden his own responsibility, simply specifying that the decision to kill Moumié did not come from

"not especially"

from him

.

", Write in their work Thomas Deltombe, Manuel Domergue and Jacob Tatsita (6)" 

Obviously, the execution of Moumié was a collective decision which made consensus.

And which, without a doubt, had been endorsed by the highest authorities of the French State

 ”, conclude the two authors.

Could General de Gaulle not know about it?

In 1990, William Bechtel finally died in peace in the Val de Grace hospital, like many great servants of the State.

Swiss embarrassment

Did Switzerland know?

And did she let it happen?

Was she afraid that a trial would reveal a complicity?

In the Federal Archives of Bern, the consultation of diplomatic documents testifies in any case to the embarrassment in which this affair plunges the Swiss authorities.

On the news of Moumié's death, the letters of protests, demanding justice for the independence movement, poured in: Bulgaria, China, Egypt, etc.

The Eastern bloc is mobilizing.

It is undeniable that the purely criminal aspect of this murder is now coupled with another aspect

 ", we read in a Swiss diplomatic note of the time.

“ 

This murder finds its projection on the plan of our foreign policy and our relations with the new African republics.

 "

During the first months following the assassination, the examining magistrate Dinichert, will also participate in several meetings on this subject, alongside senior officials.

Switzerland, says historian Marc Perrenoud, “ 

realizes that if it does nothing, the country's image abroad will be seriously damaged.

So she launches investigations to try to show that one does not murder with impunity on its territory.

But it does not make it a big public trial either, so as not to have problems with the colonial powers

.

"

FMM Graphic Studio

It is from Conakry that the strongest pressures will come.

It is also there that the mortal remains of Félix Moumié were transferred, on November 18, 1960. Ahmed Sékou Touré, the man who had said "NO" to de Gaulle two years earlier, specially chartered a plane and 'welcomes with great pomp.

He had granted exile to the independentist and his wife.

At the end of November, he declared to a journalist "to 

have proof of the complicity of certain Swiss authorities 

" in this crime.

And protests against the meager progress of the investigation.

In January of the following year, the Swiss ambassador to Guinea replied by mail.

He tries as best he can to justify himself: “ 

The investigation turned out to be difficult, in particular because the judicial authorities were approached only late and were therefore unable to question the victim. 

".

The ambassador tries in passing to ask for information on this famous " 

evidence

 " mentioned by Sékou Touré, the content of which will not be known.

This accusation 

" of complicity is all the more " 

regrettable

 " as it comes at a time when Switzerland is trying to obtain the release of a man named Francis Frichti, a Swiss sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Guinean people's court for " 

Conspiracy against the state

 ".

Our compatriot could well become a kind of hostage in the hands of the authorities in Conakry and the stake of a possible bargaining 

", one can read in a diplomatic letter.

But that's not all.

In 1960, Switzerland was still in the shock of a scandal, which occurred in 1957. We then discovered that the country transmitted to France its eavesdropping made at the Egyptian embassy.

Federal prosecutor René Dubois commits suicide.

A Bechtel trial would once again have hit the headlines and rekindled the trauma of this " 

Dubois affair

 ".

A risky prospect at the very moment when Switzerland " 

decides to engage in secret negotiations which will lead to the Evian agreements

 ".

“ 

Whereas before, we were very reserved with regard to the Algerian separatists - and the activities of the French secret services had benefited from a certain official complacency - during the winter of 60-61, we are on the contrary careful to ensure that Switzerland has a good image among decolonized countries and therefore that Switzerland is considered a place where one can be safe.

 "

More surprising than the protests of Sékou Touré, are those of the new Cameroonian president.

In November 1960, President Ahidjo himself wrote twice to the President of the Swiss Confederation.

A first time to complain about not having been officially informed of the death of Félix Moumié.

A second time, to express his " 

astonishment to note that the mortal remains of Moumié were delivered to the government of Conakry

 ".

Félix Moumié was certainly an opponent but " 

has never ceased to be a Cameroonian citizen

 ", argues President Ahidjo.

He too protests against the slowness of the investigation of which he even claims the minutes.

Goal ?

"To 

exonerate the Cameroonian government

 ," wrote a Swiss diplomat in a note.

Fearing to be in turn singled out for the assassination, the Cameroonian presidency is strengthening its security arrangements but goes even further by striving to "cover 

the tracks

 ", notes historian Marc Perrenoud.

A note from the Swiss intelligence services in Yaoundé underlined in this regard in November 1960: “ 

The President of the Republic of Cameroon is basically quite satisfied with the disappearance of his political enemy.

However, he fears being accused of having had him executed and spreads the following hypotheses: settling of scores between arms traffickers and Moumié

;

punitive action by international communism in order to liquidate a traitor

 ;

simple affair of women.

 "

As for the dispute over the remains of Félix Moumié: if they claim it, it is " 

so as not to give Sékou Touré additional arguments to denigrate colonialism and a regime -

that of Ahidjo

- that Sékou Touré and others considered that they were set up to perpetuate the colonial system,

 ”analyzes historian Marc Perrenoud.

On October 3, 2004, in front of the camera of director Frank Garbely, Marthe Moumié, his widow, will make a terrible discovery: the catafalque has been desecrated.

The body is gone.

What happened ?

The mystery remains today.

“ 

It's a second death 

,” says historian Karine Ramondy.  

Moumié could not be buried in Cameroon, his native land, among his ancestors, which for Africans represents a tragedy.

This meeting of the body of the earth and the spirit which does not take place, makes that the spirit of the deceased still haunts the living.

And that we continue to talk about Félix Moumié even today in 2020, shows that ultimately this enterprise of programmed memory destruction, on the other hand, has failed.

 "

NOTES:

  • Leaders Assassinated in Central Africa 1958-1961

    : Between National Construction and Regulation of International Relations

    , Harmattan, 2020.

  • Death in Geneva (Félix Moumié)

    , documentary film by Frank Garbely, 2008, available on the dailymotion.com website

  • In a personal notebook seized by the Swiss police on November 17, 1960 at his home

     :" I know how to break a man's neck without having time to cry out. I know how to kill. But I look harmless. ".

    This sentence says a lot about the character.

     », Reports in her book Karine Ramondy

  • I did not say everything, Ultimate revelations in the service of France

    , Paul Aussaresses and Jean-Charles Deniau, éditions du Rocher, 2008.

  • SDECE Service 7. The extraordinary story of Colonel Le Roy-Finville and the illegals

    , Philippe Bernert, Presses de la Cité, 1980.

  • Kamerun

    !

    A Hidden War at the Origins of Françafrique, 1948-1971,

    Thomas Deltombe, Manuel Domergue, Jacob Tatsita.

    La Découverte editions, 2011.

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