(Adds French, Moroccan reaction)
By Thierry Leveque
PARIS, Oct 23 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy should use his visit to Morocco to press for the arrest of five people wanted over the 1960s abduction of a Moroccan opposition leader in Paris, the family's lawyer said on Tuesday.
A judicial source said on Monday that a French judge was preparing warrants for five suspects linked to the disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka outside a Paris cafe in October 1965.
"These arrest warrants are a warning shot and I hope that they will make the Moroccan authorities act," Maurice Buttin, who has represented the Ben Barka family in the case for 42 years, told Reuters.
"I don't just want these people to be arrested but for them to speak also," he said.
"We want him (Sarkozy) to make the Moroccans understand that these letters rogatory must be carried out," Buttin said. A letter rogatory is a request from the legal authorities of one country for help from the judicial authorities of another.
Sarkozy, on a three-day visit to Morocco which began with the signature of agreements on a high-speed train, defence equipment and atomic power, deflected questions.
"The justice system is independent," he told reporters.
Guillaume Didier, spokesman for Justice Minister Rachida Dati who is travelling with Sarkozy, said: "No arrest warrant has reached the Justice Ministry, so we have no comment."
Before any warrants can be acted upon they must first go before a French public prosecutor and then the Justice Ministry, which is responsible for transmitting them.
"The King said in 1999 that we have to seek the truth and that the Ben Barka family had a right to know," said a Moroccan official in Rabat who did not wish to be named.
"But we have to choose the timing and the moment. There are too many coincidences," he said.
"Weird, weird, weird," said another Moroccan official, adding that the leak about the warrants during the state visit was intended to hurt Sarkozy and Dati and "spoil the party".
The first woman of North African origin to run a major French ministry, Dati has angered many in the French judiciary and her ministry with her reforms and abrasive style.
Despite extensive investigations by the Arab world's first truth commission, the fate of the charismatic Socialist Ben Barka is still shrouded in mystery.
Some reports had him being whisked away in a French police car to a villa where he was tortured to death by Moroccan security officials.
Another version had his body flown to Rabat, where his head was brought on a silver tray to the royal palace. Others said his body was dissolved in acid, with the help of U.S. and Israeli agents, and his head buried in a secret grave in Rabat.
King Mohammed set up an Equity and Reconciliation Commission to investigate rights abuses between the 1960s and King Hassan's death in 1999.
The 21-month probe ended last year but investigators said more time was needed to look into the case of Ben Barka, who taught King Hassan mathematics before becoming the monarch's most feared political opponent. (Additional reporting by Emmanual Jarry in Rabat)
