Ahmed Ben Bella

Ben Bella joined the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties and then its paramilitary Special Organisation; the French arrested him in 1950, he escaped from prison in 1952 and took refuge in Cairo, where he became one of the FLN's external leaders and a principal channel of its arms. When the revolution broke out in 1954 he was among its leading figures; in 1956 France diverted the aircraft carrying him and held him until the ceasefire of 1962. {cite:source/wikipedia-ahmed-ben-bella-en} {cite:source/wikipedia-ahmed-ben-bella-ar}

Ben Bella became head of government of independent Algeria on 27 September 1962, and on 15 September 1963 its first president, elected with 99.6 per cent of the vote; he steered the country towards Arab socialism and fought the Sand War with Morocco in 1963. On 19 June 1965 his defence minister Houari Boumédiène overthrew him in a bloodless coup, and he spent long years under house arrest and then in exile before returning to Algeria. He died at his family home in Algiers on 11 April 2012; eight days of national mourning were declared, and he was buried in the Martyrs' Square of El Alia Cemetery. {cite:source/wikipedia-ahmed-ben-bella-en} {cite:source/wikipedia-ahmed-ben-bella-ar}