Terror's Advocate | North Coast Journal

Terror’s Advocate

Along its meandering path, it dives into side stories, like trying to figure out where Vergès disappeared to in the 1970s, and whether or not he was criminally involved with a former client, the terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Vergès also defended Carlos’ girlfriend Magdalena Kopps, who he was involved with sexually after she was released from prison. He may have even corroborated in an earlier plan to spring Kopps from jail, but we’ll never know. Vergès’ lips are sealed, capped with a sly little smile.

What is most fascinating about Vergès’ life is that this son of a French diplomat and a Vietnamese mother used his clients as a way of putting France on trial, or so the film asserts. It was only inside the halls of justice that Vergès, a David-like character, could take on the French colonialist Goliath. Ultimately, it was his intimate knowledge of what it meant to be an outsider in French society that was both his greatest weapon and his Achilles heel.

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