Terror's Advocate

An examination of the career of Jacques Verges, attorney for members of Algeria's FLN, Palestine's FPLP, the Khmer Rouge, Carlos and associates, Klaus Barbie, and other revolutionaries and outcasts. Archival footage, news articles, and photographs mix with contemporary interviews of Verges, friends, associates, and historians. Connections with Nazis are explored, as well as Verges's marriage to Djamila Bouhired, his courtroom methods, his disappearance from 1970 to 1978, and the roots of his radicalism. Throughout, Verges remains playful and charming, with a soupcon of arrogance. The film suggests Verges's anti-colonial nature is at his center.