Ali Boumendjel | |
|---|---|
 Ali Boumendjel | |
| Born | (1919-05-24)May 24, 1919 |
| Died | March 23, 1957(1957-03-23) (aged 37) |
| Cause of death | Execution byfalling |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, journalist |
Ali Boumendjel (May 24, 1919 – March 23, 1957) was an Algerian revolutionary and lawyer.[1]
Born inRelizane to an educated family from Beni Yeni region, Boumendjel was educated at the Duveyrier college inBlida, where he met with other future figures of theAlgerian revolution, such asAbane Ramdane,Benyoucef Benkhedda andSaad Dahlab. He then oriented his career toward law, and became a journalist for theEgalité journal, controlled by the integrationists ofFerhat Abbas. During the revolution he became, withJacques Verges, one of many lawyers working for the Algerian nationalists. In 1955, he joined theNational Liberation Front (FLN) with his old friend Abane Ramdane, after Ramdane was released from prison.[2] Ramdane advised Boumendjel to change his professional orientation, so he joined the litigation department ofShell corporation, while still continuing his militantism in the FLN.[citation needed]
Ali studiedlaw and became a lawyer. His political awakening took place during the days of thePopular Front. It was marked by the call for the emancipation of the AlgerianNation launched byMessali Hadj and sensitive to the commitment and communist mobilization in the MuslimCongress. He refused military service in the French Army, which earned him a list of anti-French activities and to be considered a dangerousnationalist.[citation needed]
Boumendjel was arrested on February 9, 1957, and underwent over a month of torture at the hands of commandantPaul Aussaresses and his men. On March 23, in El Biar, outside Algiers, he was thrown from the sixth floor of a building; his death was passed off as a suicide.[3] Forty-three years later, in 2000, Aussaresses admitted that Boumendjel had been murdered.[4]
Following the recommendations of the report by historianBenjamin Stora on remembrance ofFrench Algeria, on March 2, 2021, French PresidentEmmanuel Macron recognized that Ali Boumendjel was "tortured and murdered" by theFrench army.[5] The president received four of Ali Boumendjel's grandchildren to announce to them the recognition, on behalf ofFrance, of his assassination.[6] The press release evokes the confession ofPaul Aussaresses to have ordered one of his subordinates to disguise the murder as suicide.[7]
A street and a metro station bear his name in Algiers as well as a city in Relizane, his birthplace.[citation needed]
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