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106 CHAPTER 2checked. By 1961, the slave trade from Mali, involving Tamasheq chiefsreached a new momentum with the pilgrimage of that year.The first pilgrims from independent Mali were accompanied by AbdelwahabDoucouré, a former subordinate to Marcel Cardaire in the Bureau des AffairesMusulmanes and now performing the same task as his former superior had:Being the formal pilgrim agent on the official hajj, responsible for the pilgrim’swelfare, their safe return, and the monitoring of all things political surroundingthe hajj. The official pilgrims delegation from Mali landed in Jeddah on 1 May1961. 88 Upon his arrival in Saudi Arabia, Abdelwahab was confronted withwhat he believed to be a case of slave trade. On the 3 rd of May he was visited bya certain Abdel Koudous, a high-ranking Saudi civil servant, who seemed tohave functioned as a broker between Saudi clients and Soudanese suppliers,among them Mohamed Ali and Marouchett ag Moussa who was the amenokalof the Tenguereguedesh tribe. In his interview to Afrique nouvelle, Awad elDjouh had indicated that another servant to Mohamed Ali, who had travelledwith them, had been sold to Abdel Koudous. 89 Marouchett had fled in exilefrom Malian rule in the years before. From Abdel Koudous, Abdelwahablearned that Marouchett was awaiting Sidi Mohamed ag Zokka, the former chiefof the Chouakhan tribe and former PSP candidate in the Niger Bend. SidiMohamed, so Abdel Koudous stated, would arrive with twenty-eight ‘slaves’.When he learned of Sidi Mohamed’s imminent arrival, Abdelwahab flew backto Bamako to receive instructions from Minister of the Interior Madeira Keitaon this matter. Upon his return at Jeddah airport, he found Sidi Mohamed agZokka there in the company of 31 people, mostly children and some men.Immediately, Abdelwahab had Sidi Mohamed and his followers were arrestedby the Saudi police, informing the Saudi head of security and Madeira Keita ofhis catch. The Saudi police decided not to deliver Sidi Mohamed ag Zokka andhis followers to the Malians since Mali had no official diplomatic representationin the Kingdom, but instead extradited him to Sudan for want of legal visa andthus probably preventing a scandal. Sidi Mohamed’s following was kept inSaudi Arabia, and, on his demand, entrusted to Marouchett ag Moussa, who wasfirst made to sign all sorts of guarantees for their safekeeping. Abdelwahab thenproceeded to deal with a number of smaller cases of slave trade, for example thearrest of Intaha ag Sidi Oualad Driss, who had tried to sell two children who hepretended were his own. Then there was a group of 30 pilgrims who hadtravelled with a certain Warninekh, who had tried to sell them to a Saudi8889The following is entirely based on: Rapport sur le pélerinage 1961. AbdelwahabDoucouré. ANM – BPN104d398 Carton 104 Dossier 398. I thank Gregory Mann forsharing this material with me.D. Traoré, “La route des esclaves noirs commence à Villa Cisneros et aboutit à laMecque”, Afrique nouvelle 04/09/1954.