Jacques Vergès

Jacques Vergès (5 March 1925 – 15 August 2013) was a lawyer who earned fame continually from the 1950s, first as an anticolonialist communist figure and then for defending a long string of well-known clients, from an anticolonialist Algerian militant, Djamila Bouhired (his future wife) in 1957–1962 to former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan in 2008. His clients included both leftwing and rightwing terrorists, war criminals, and militants, including Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie (1987), and international terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal (1994). In 2002, Vergès offered to represent former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, although Milošević declined any legal advice from any party. The media sensationalized Vergès's activities with the sobriquet "the Devil's advocate", and he himself contributed to his "notorious" public persona by such acts as titling his autobiography The Brilliant Bastard and giving provocative replies in interviews. He claimed that when asked if he would have defended Hitler, he replied, "I'd even defend Bush! But only if he agrees to plead guilty."

Biography
Born in Ubon Ratchathani, Siam, and brought up on the island of Réunion, Jacques Vergès was a son of Raymond Vergès, a French diplomat, and a Vietnamese mother. In 1942, with his father's encouragement, he sailed to Liverpool to become part of the Free French Forces under Charles de Gaulle, and to participate in the anti-Nazi resistance. In 1945 he joined the French Communist Party. After the war he went to the University of Paris to study law (while his twin brother Paul Vergès went on to become the leader of the Reunionese Communist Party and a member of the European Parliament). In 1949 Jacques became president of the AEC (Association for Colonial Students), where he met and befriended Pol Pot. In 1950, at the request of his Communist mentors, he went to Prague to lead a youth organization for four years.

Algerian independence movement
After returning to France, Vergès became a lawyer and quickly gained fame for his willingness to take controversial cases. During the struggle in Algiers he defended many accused of terrorism by the French government. He was a supporter of the Algerian armed independence struggle against France, comparing it to French armed resistance to the Nazi German occupation in the 1940s. Vergès became a nationally-known figure following his defence of the anti-French Algerian guerrilla Djamila Bouhired on terrorism charges: she was convicted of blowing up a café and killing eleven people inside it. This is where he pioneered the rupture strategy, in which he accused the prosecution of the same offenses as the defendants. She was sentenced to death but pardoned and freed following public pressure brought on by Vergès' efforts. After some years she married Vergès, who had by then converted to Islam. They had two children, Meriem and Liess Vergès, later followed by a granddaughter, Fatima Nur Vergès-Habboub, daughter of Meriem and her husband Fouad. In an effort to limit Vergès' success at defending Algerian clients, he was sentenced to two months in jail in 1960 and temporarily lost his licence to officially practice law for anti-state activities. After Algeria gained its independence in 1962, Vergès obtained Algerian citizenship, going by the name of Mansour.

Missing years
From 1970 to 1978, Vergès disappeared from public view without explanation. He refused to comment about those years, remarking in an interview with Der Spiegel that "It's highly amusing that no one, in our modern police state, can figure out where I was for almost ten years." Vergès was last seen on 24 February 1970. He left his wife, Djamila, and cut off all his ties, leaving friends and family to wonder if he had been killed. His whereabouts during these years have remained a mystery. Many of his close associates of the time assume that he was in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge, a rumour Pol Pot (Brother #1) and Ieng Sary (Brother #2) both denied. There have also been claims that Vergès was spotted in Paris as well as in Arab countries in the company of Palestinian militant groups.

Defence
After Vergès's return to normal life he resumed his legal practice, defending Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, convicted of terrorism, and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie. The thrust of his defence in the latter case was that Barbie was being singled out for prosecution while the French state conveniently ignored other cases that qualified as crimes against humanity.

In 1999 Vergès sued Amnesty International on behalf of the government of Togo. In 2001, on behalf of Idriss Déby, president of Chad, Omar Bongo, president of Gabon, and Denis Sassou-Nguesso, head of the Republic of the Congo, he sued François-Xavier Verschave for his book Noir silence denouncing the crimes of the Françafrique on the charges of "offense toward a foreign state leader". The attorney general observed how this crime recalled the lese majesty crime; the court thus deemed it contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, thus leading to Verschave's acquittal.

After the US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003 and deposed Saddam Hussein, many former leaders in Saddam's regime were arrested. In May 2008, Tariq Aziz assembled a team that included Vergès as well as a French-Lebanese and four Italian lawyers. In late 2003, Vergès also offered to defend Saddam if he was asked to. However, Saddam's family opted not to use Vergès.

In April 2008, former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan made his first appearance at Cambodia's genocide tribunal. Vergès represented him, using the defence that, while Samphan has never denied that many people in Cambodia were killed, as head of state he was never directly responsible.

According to The Economist, "history was his first love, and he still dreamed sometimes of deciphering Etruscan or Linear A, unfolding the secrets of mysterious civilisations."

Vergès died in August 2013 of a heart attack in Paris at the age of 88. His funeral was attended by Roland Dumas and Dieudonné M'bala M'bala. Vergès is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery.

In popular culture

 * In 1987 Vergès appeared on a memorable episode of the live British discussion television programme After Dark along with Eli Rosenbaum, Neal Ascherson, Philippe Daudy and Paul Oestreicher.
 * Vergès was portrayed by Nicolas Briançon in the 2010 French film Carlos.