Joseph Braude - The Honored Dead: A Story of Friendship, Murder, and the Search for Truth in the Arab World

ALSO BY JOSEPH BRAUDE

The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its People,
the Middle East, and the World

Copyright 2011 by Joseph Braude

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

S PIEGEL & G RAU and Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Braude, Joseph.
The honored dead : a story of friendship, murder, and the search for truth in
the Arab world / Joseph Braude.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60432-7
1. Braude, Joseph. 2. MurderInvestigationMoroccoCase studies.
3. MoroccoHistory21st century. I. Title.
HV6535.M8B73 2011
364.1523092dc22 2010046496

www.spiegelandgrau.com

Jacket dasign: Dean Nicastro
Jacket photographs: Laurent Nivalle

v3.1

To Ali

The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities.

R AYMOND C HANDLER

M uhammad Bari eased out of his bedroom and opened the creaking front door just enough to make his way outside. His wife needed her sleep; she had to get up for work in an hour. Usually Baris best friend would be waiting for him in the alleyway and they would walk together to a nearby mosque for the dawn prayer. This morning, the alleyway was empty. Bari didnt worry: sometimes his friend slept in until sunrise.

It was December in Casablanca, Moroccos sprawling economic capital on the Atlantic coast of North Africa. An ocean mist chilled the lingering darkness. Baris teeth chattered as he took off his shoes outside the mosque and placed them in an empty cubbyhole. He performed his ritual ablutions in the washroom and proceeded barefoot into the sanctuary warm with body heat: several hundred people had already lined up on the floor in long rows facing east. The sanctuarys warmth was welcome, but the dawn prayer lasted only ten minutes.

Ordinarily, Bari and his friend would repair from the mosque to a nearby caf. If one or both of them had missed the dawn prayer, they would find each other inside. They would sit and talk for hours while people with jobs hurried in and out. This morning Bari arrived alone, and drank his coffee alone, and read the newspapers alone, and watched Al Jazeera alone, and worried about where his friend could be now. The place where he sleeps does not belong to him, he thought. He has to evacuate early so that the men who control the facility do not catch him.

Could he have overslept? How could he possibly risk sleeping past sunrise?

Bari finally felt driven from his familiar caf chair to find out what was going on with his friend, why he had left Bari alone on this morning. He knew where to go. He knew the place well.

The enormous warehouse is enclosed by a spiked metal wall that someone painted red a long time ago. At one end, the wall abuts a field of gravel and dirt bisected by the same train track that slices the city in half; people gather there at night to lie around and get drunk. Nobody ventures over that wall. Nobody is supposed to go inside except the people who work there. Silence ordinarily surrounded the place.

But not this morning. When Bari reached the spiked front gate, it was surrounded by state security. A dozen uniformed police minded a perimeter of yellow ribbon. Auxiliary Forces troops in green fatigues stood guard by the entrance. Plainclothes detectives paced in and out.

Who are you? What do you want? one of them barked.

Im looking for a, a friend of mine, Bari replied.

The detective locked in on Baris eyes. He grabbed him by the forearm and pulled him in past the gate to a raucous crowd of cops, who were bending down and peering over and putting down markers and taking pictures and arguing with one another.

There was a rusty smell in the air.

That was a friend of yours? the detective demanded, pointing.

Bari turned his head toward the stone steps leading up to the guards quarters, where his friend always slept. What he saw, he did not understand at first. The steps were drenched in red. There was a large thing lying on top of them. It had a blood-soaked beard, a couple of teeth, and clothes on. There was a head, but it was mutilated into a different shape. Bari began to feel a rising heat in his head and throat. His temples started pulsating. Now the rest of his body was in on it. He couldnt breathe. He lost his balance.

The detective steadied him by the forearm, which was still clasped tight in his muscular hand.

T he lieutenant who questioned Bari over the next three days wore jeans and a charcoal gray blazer. Lieutenant Jabri was genteel, more relaxed than the men at the warehouse, perhaps a little weary of his work. He rarely raised his voice, he never insulted Bari or the other detainee, and he phrased his questions thoughtfully. Rather than refer to the murder victim by name, for example, he always called him al-Marhum, Arabic for he who has been granted mercy.

On the third day, he went through the same battery of questions he had asked the day before and the day before that.

Youre sure al-Marhum was never in any trouble? the lieutenant asked.

Never, Bari said.

How would you describe his character?

Bari combed his scraggly salt-and-pepper beard with his fingernails and shaped it with his knuckles. I said yesterday he had a good reputation all over the neighborhood and he went to pray in the mosque every morning.

The detainee who sat next to Bari in the lieutenants office nodded vigorously.

The last time you saw him?

The night before you found him, Bari replied. It was Sharif the book peddler and me and we had a bowl of harira with him.

Was al-Marhum preoccupied, agitated?

No, he was comfortable and maybe almost a little cheerful. He said he was going to do some small deal and he thought it was going to come through.

The lieutenant had been seated at his desk. Now he abruptly stood up and looked down at Bari, who had to crane his neck to meet the lieutenants eyes.

How long did al-Marhum sleep in that place? How long did he sleep there!

Bari twitched.

The truth.

Five years.

Five years, Jabri repeated. Did you ever visit him inside?

Sometimes, Bari replied.

A lot or a little?

Not often. Very rarely. That wasnt true.

Did he have other visitors there? Was it common for him to bring people in there?

Bari could feel his own pulse. The lieutenant must notice the blood rushing to my face, he thought. Yes, I do remember that sometimes I would come by and knock and he would say he had people inside and I should come back later.

The lieutenant moved slowly back to the chair behind his desk, fixing his eyes on the other detainee.

The man who sat next to Bari, a man named Attar, was visibly frightened, increasingly so each day. The police had let Bari go around seven oclock the night before with instructions to come back the following morningbut they had held on to Attar God knows how late. When Bari returned, he found Attar alone in the office waiting for the lieutenant to arrive. He was slumped over in his chair, asleep. Bari tapped him on the shoulder and Attar convulsed. He cried,