JACQUES VERGÈS

ACTING

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jacques Vergès, born 5 March 1925 in Ubon Ratchathani, Siam (now called Thailand), is a French lawyer who has earned fame continually since the 1950s, first as an anticolonialist communist figure and then for defending a long string of well-known clients from anticolonialist Algerian militant Djamila Bouhired (his future wife) in 1957-1962 to former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan (2008).

His clients have 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.