French lawyer 'Devil's advocate' Jacques Verges dies

YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, ARMENPRESS. Controversial French lawyer Jacques Verges, whose clients included Carlos the Jackal and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, has died aged 88.

As reports "Armenpress" citing BBC, Mr Verges became known as "the Devil's advocate" for taking on controversial and high-profile cases.

He is said to have been a friend of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader behind the Cambodian genocide.

An anti-colonialist and communist, he defended Algerians accused of terrorism against France in the 1950s.

Christian Charriere-Bournazel, head of France's main bar association, told the Agence France-Presse news agency that he had been informed of Mr Verges' death by the lawyer's associates.

"He had a fall a few months ago, he had since lost a lot of weight and walked very slowly. We knew the end was near but we didn't know it would come so soon," he said.

Mr Verges was born in Thailand to a French diplomat father and a Vietnamese mother, and grew up on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, where he is said to have acquired his fiercely anti-colonialist views.

In World War II he fought with General Charles de Gaulle's Free French resistance and later joined the French Communist Party.

During the Algerian war of independence, he defended Algerians accused of terrorism against France.

One of his clients was his future wife Djamila Bouhired, who had been sentenced to death in 1957 for planting bombs in cafes in Algiers.