2024-12-11 18:42:00
On behalf of Gallimard, Me Zimeray did not obtain the necessary visa in time to prepare Boualem Sansal’s defense on site together with the Algerian lawyer: the agreements concluded in 1962 allow lawyers from the two countries to occasionally practice on both shores of the Mediterranean.
Highlighting the context “extremely sensitive” of the tensions between France and Algeria and the little information he was able to access, Me Zimeray gave an idea of the constraints weighing on defense, which must take on all the “roughness of language” which could be “returned” against his client.
“A crime that takes all”
It is indeed thus not a question of implementing a strategy “break”he explained, referring to the thunderous tactic made famous by Jacques Vergès (1924-2013), consisting of transforming a defendant into an accuser of the system that judges him. Me Zimeray, however, quoted another lawyer, Gisèle Halimi (1927-2020) who, defending the members of the National Liberation Front (FLN), during the Algerian war, said: “The cause of Algeria is that of justice, freedom and dignity”. A way to remind the country of a history that places it on the side of emancipation and not of a “arbitrary” this would be demonstrated by the arrest of Boualem Sansal and the charges against him.