In France, Jacques Vergès was a well-known attorney. Jacques was born to a couple of mixed race. Due to the births of Jacques and his twin brother, their father was obliged to relocate to another nation in order to maintain his government position. Vergès grew up proud of his multiethnic upbringing and joined the military voluntarily as a teenager. After extensive military service, he enrolled in law school in Paris. First representing students of color and subsequently the young wing of an international political movement, he discovered his calling as a student leader. After several years of political activism in another nation, Vergès returned to Paris to resume his legal career. One of his first contentious clients was a woman accused of violent resistance against the colonial colonization of her homeland. After successfully obtaining her pardon, Jacques married her. As the authorities attempted to dissuade him from representing people facing terrorism allegations, he was briefly incarcerated and stripped of his his license. Vergès returned to Paris and proceeded to represent a number of infamous clients, including former heads of state and alleged war criminals, after a protracted and enigmatic absence from both the public and private spheres. Following a lengthy career in the public eye, Vergès died of natural causes.
Youth and Early Life
Jacques Vergès was born in Ubon Ratchathani, part of the Rattanakosin Kingdom in Thailand, on March 5, 1925. His mother was a Vietnamese woman of the Pham Thi Khang ethnicity, while his father, Raymond Vergès, was a French diplomat. His mother passed away when he was three years old.
The majority of Jacques’ boyhood was spent on the French island of Reunion. His twin brother’s name was Paul. His father taught him how to throw stones at older bullies when he was a young lad.
Jacques Verges’s Career
In 1942, at age 17, the adolescent flew to England to join Charles de Gaulle’s “Free French Forces.” He then joined the anti-Nazi resistance groups and fought.
Vergès joined the French Communist Party in 1945. He enrolled at the ‘University of Paris’ to study law later that year.
In 1949, he was elected president of the Association for Colonial Students (AEC). Thus, he encountered fellow AEC member Pol Pot.
In 1950, he relocated to Prague to lead a Communist youth group. There, he was introduced to Erich Honecker and Alexander Shelepin.
In 1954, Vergès relocated to France to pursue a legal profession. As a result of his enthusiasm to take on contentious cases, he swiftly achieved notoriety.
In 1957, the young attorney rose to national prominence by agreeing to represent Djamila Bouhired, a woman accused of terrorism in connection with the bombing deaths of 11 people in Algeria. Despite being convicted and sentenced to death, she was later pardoned and released due to Vergès’s public outrage.
In 1960, Jacques was imprisoned and stripped of his legal license for “anti-state activity.” He was released and his license was reinstated two months later.
In 1962, the attorney got Algerian citizenship in the newly independent nation. He subsequently changed his given name to Mansour, an Arabic name that means “Victorious.”
Vergès and his wife started the magazine Revolution in 1968.
The legal executive abruptly vanished from public view in 1970. Eight years after leaving his wife, he severed all links with friends and relatives. He has never elaborated on his actions during this time period.
After returning to the practice of law in France in 1978, he defended several terrorist suspects, notably Georges Ibrahim Abdallah and members of the “Baader Meinhof gang.”
In 1982, he defended Magdalena Kopp, the girlfriend of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as “Carlos the Jackal.” The attorney briefly worked on Sanchez’s defense team twelve years later.
After defending Nazi chief Klaus Barbie in 1987, he attained worldwide renown. Later, Barbie was found guilty of 341 counts of crimes against humanity.
In 1999, the attorney filed a lawsuit against Amnesty International on behalf of his client, the government of Togo. The Togolese government was angered by the non-report profits on government-sponsored massacres preceding local elections.
In 2001, he filed a lawsuit against a book’s author on behalf of the presidents of the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Chad. The author defended his work successfully before the European Convention on Human Rights.
In 2007, a documentary named ‘L’Avocat de la terror or ‘Terror’s Lawyer’ in the English language was produced.
In 2008, he was hired to defend many former Iraqi government leaders as part of a legal team. In the same year, he penned the autobiographical drama Serial Defender and played it as himself at the Theatre de la Madeleine in Paris.
In April 2011, Vergès defended Khieu Samphan, the former leader of the Khmer Republic, in Cambodia’s genocide tribunal.
Jacques’s Major Opera
In 1987, the most prominent client that Jacques Vergès represented was the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, for whom he gained international renown. The attorney created a signature technique known as the “rupture strategy,” in which he defended his clients by accusing the prosecution of the same crimes.
Personal History and Legacy
After representing Algerian nationalist Djamila Bouhired in a dispute against the French government, Jacques Vergès wed her. They have three children together: Jacquou, Meriem, and Liess.
The renowned attorney passed away in Paris on August 15, 2013, following a protracted illness and a fall many months earlier. Vergès passed away in the bedroom of the celebrated French author Voltaire.
The renowned lawyer was so proud of the mixed heritage that he converted to Islam. He wrote over twenty nonfiction works.
Estimated Net Worth
Jacques is one of the wealthiest and most popular attorneys. According to our research, Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider, Jacques Verges has an estimated net worth of $1.5 million.
Trivia
Despite his illustrious legal career, this prominent attorney has stated that history was his first love. His nickname in the English-language media was “The Devil’s advocate.” The French media have dubbed him “Luminous Bastard.”