Saved for the Sand

In Algeria last week Hocine Ait Ahmed and an officer named Si Moussa sat in prison cells awaiting execution. Their four-day trial had taken place before a three-man "revolutionary criminal court." Ait Ahmed, 39, a French-trained lawyer, was captured last October after leading an underground movement aimed at toppling the government of President Ahmed ben Bella, his onetime comrade in arms in the F.L.N. struggle against the French. The state demanded the death sentence, and the 15 defense lawyers--Algerian, Moroccan, French and Swiss--finally quit the courtroom in protest at the methods of the tribunal, especially the sudden calling of defense witnesses at 1 a.m. Naturally, none appeared.

Ait Ahmed, well aware that nothing could save him except Ben Bella's whim, announced that he would carry on his defense alone. When he was finished, the three-man tribunal got on the phone to Ben Bella and then announced the death penalty. For 48 hours after the trial, Ben Bella and his top leadership debated the case. There was strong sentiment against clemency, but everyone knew that execution would arouse greater resentment than ever among the anti-Ben Bella Berbers of Kabylia, where Alt Ahmed was a local hero.

On Monday evening, the regular news broadcast was 35 minutes late, and the time was filled with soft music. Then came the announcement: Ben Bella had personally commuted the death sentences of Ait Ahmed and Si Moussa to life imprisonment. Both men will probably be sent deep into the Sahara where they can keep company with former Premier Ferhat Abbas, former Justice Minister Amar Bentoumi, and several former deputies, including Abderrahmane Fares, ex-President of the provisional executive government. In Algeria, the revolution does not devour its children; it merely buries them in the desert.

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