Jacques Vergès was a French-Algerian lawyer of Vietnamese origin and anti-colonial activist. Vergès began as a fighter in the French Resistance during World War II, under Charles de Gaulle's Free French forces.
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Jacques Vergès was a French-Algerian lawyer of Vietnamese origin and anti-colonial activist. Vergès began as a fighter in the French Resistance during World War II, under Charles de Gaulle's Free French forces. After becoming a lawyer, he became well known for his defense of FLN militants during the Algerian War of Independence. He was later involved in a number of controversial and high-profile legal cases, with a series of defendants charged with terrorism, serial murder, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. This includes Nazi officer Klaus Barbie, "the Butcher of Lyon", in 1987, terrorist Carlos the Jackal in 1994, and former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan in 2008. He also defended infamous Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy in 1998, as well as members of the Baader-Meinhof gang. As a result of taking on such clients, he garnered criticism from members of the public, including intellectuals Bernard-Henri Lévy and Alain Finkielkraut, political activist Gerry Gable and Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld.
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