Ali Boumendjel

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Ali Boumendjel (May 24, 1919 – March 23, 1957) was an Algerian lawyer and revolutionary who fought for Algeria’s independence from France. He was born in Relizane and grew up in a well-educated family. He studied at the Duveyrier college in Blida, where he met other future leaders of the Algerian revolution.

Boumendjel studied law and worked as a journalist for Egalité, a newspaper linked to integrationists. He became a lawyer for Algerian nationalists and, with Jacques Verges, helped defend them. In 1955, he joined the National Liberation Front (FLN) with his friend Abane Ramdane after Ramdane’s release from prison. Ramdane advised him to focus more on legal work, so Boumendjel joined the litigation department of Shell while continuing his nationalist activities.

He refused to serve in the French Army, which marked him as a nationalist to the authorities. Boumendjel was arrested on February 9, 1957, and endured torture for over a month by French forces led by commandant Paul Aussaresses. On March 23, 1957, he was killed by being thrown from a building in El Biar, near Algiers. The death was described as a suicide at the time, but in 2000 Aussaresses admitted that Boumendjel had been murdered.

In March 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that Boumendjel had been tortured and murdered by the French army, delivering the recognition to Boumendjel’s grandchildren.

Today Boumendjel is remembered in Algeria: a street and a metro station in Algiers bear his name, and a city in Relizane, his birthplace, is named after him.