Ali Boumendjel
{{Short description|Algerian revolutionary and lawyer}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ali Boumendjel
| image = Ali Boumendjel.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Ali Boumendjel
| birth_date = {{birth date|1919|05|24}}
| birth_place = Relizane, French Algeria
| death_date = {{death date and age|1957|03|23|1919|05|24}}
| death_place = El Biar, French Algeria
| death_cause = Execution by falling
| education =
| occupation = Lawyer, journalist
}}
Ali Boumendjel (May 24, 1919 – March 23, 1957) was an Algerian revolutionary and lawyer.[https://www.humanite.fr/mot-cle/ali-boumendjel ALI BOUMENDJEL]
Biography
File:Photo metro alger ali boumendjel 17122018.jpg
Born in Relizane to an educated family from Beni Yeni region, Boumendjel was educated at the Duveyrier college in Blida, where he met with other future figures of the Algerian revolution, such as Abane Ramdane, Benyoucef Benkhedda and Saad Dahlab. He then oriented his career toward law, and became a journalist for the Egalité journal, controlled by the integrationists of Ferhat Abbas. During the revolution he became, with Jacques Verges, one of many lawyers working for the Algerian nationalists. In 1955, he joined the National Liberation Front (FLN) with his old friend Abane Ramdane, after Ramdane was released from prison.{{cite web | url=http://www.djazairess.com/fr/elwatan/299548 | title=Autopsie d'un engagement. Biographie Ali Boumendjel, l'avocat martyr | publisher=Dja Zairess | date=November 20, 2010 |language=French}} Ramdane advised Boumendjel to change his professional orientation, so he joined the litigation department of Shell corporation, while still continuing his militantism in the FLN.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}
Ali studied law and became a lawyer. His political awakening took place during the days of the Popular Front. It was marked by the call for the emancipation of the Algerian Nation launched by Messali Hadj and sensitive to the commitment and communist mobilization in the Muslim Congress. He refused military service in the French Army, which earned him a list of anti-French activities and to be considered a dangerous nationalist.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}
Boumendjel was arrested on February 9, 1957, and underwent over a month of torture at the hands of commandant Paul 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.{{cite web |last=Benyahia |first=Aek |url=http://www.reflexiondz.net/Ali-Boumendjel-avocat-pacifiste-torture-et-assassine-par-les-paras-de-Massu_a16083.html |title=Ali Boumendjel, avocat pacifiste, torturé et assassiné par les paras de Massu |publisher=Reflexion |date=February 19, 2012 |language=French}} Forty-three years later, in 2000, Aussaresses admitted that Boumendjel had been murdered.{{cite news |url=http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_item=ART_ARCH_30J&objet_id=702899 |title=L'accablante confession du général Aussaresses sur la torture en Algérie |work=Le Monde |date=3 May 2001 |language=French}} {{subscription required}}
Following the recommendations of the report by historian Benjamin Stora on remembrance of French Algeria, on March 2, 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron recognized that Ali Boumendjel was "tortured and murdered" by the French army. [https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/guerre-d-algerie-macron-reconnait-que-le-militant-ali-boumendjel-a-ete-torture-et-assassine-par-l-armee-francaise-20210302 Guerre d'Algérie : Emmanuel Macron reconnaît que le militant Ali Boumendjel a été «torturé et assassiné» par l'armée française] The president received four of Ali Boumendjel's grandchildren to announce to them the recognition, on behalf of France, of his assassination.{{Cite news|date=2021-03-03|title=Ali Boumendjel: France admits 'torture and murder' of Algerian nationalist|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56262963|access-date=2021-03-03}} The press release evokes the confession of Paul Aussaresses to have ordered one of his subordinates to disguise the murder as suicide. [https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2021/03/02/reconnaissance-par-la-france-de-lassassinat-dali-boumendjel Reconnaissance par la France de l’assassinat d’Ali Boumendjel.]
Tributes
A street and a metro station bear his name in Algiers as well as a city in Relizane, his birthplace.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book | title=Ali Boumendjel, une affaire française, une histoire algérienne | publisher=Les Belles Lettres | author=Malika Rahal | year=2010 | location=Paris | isbn=978-2251900056}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Portal|Law |Politics}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boumendjel, Ali}}
Category:Members of the National Liberation Front (Algeria)
Category:Assassinated Algerian politicians
Category:20th-century Algerian lawyers
Category:20th-century Algerian politicians
Category:Algerian torture victims
Category:Algerian War torture victims
Category:Extrajudicial killings by the French military