WIDOW OF: TROTSKYIST LEADER ARRESTED IN ALGIERS
The June 4 issue of the Paris daily Le Monde reported” that it had+learned from privaté sources that three French women. had |. been arrested some’ weeks before: ‘by the Boumedienne tregimet Itc listed them as Mme Suzanne’ Zakife, a dressmaker'‘in Algiers: whd. is the widow of Dr. Raphael Zakine, her assistant, and a customer, © Claude Bobillier, a student at the school of journalism. ws
Le Monde reported that friends of the victims were astonished that the Algerian authorities had kept the arrests and the reasons for them secret.
On the following day, Le Monde ran a more extensive report, the text (of. which is. as follows:
"Recording to an AFP [Agence France: Presse] dispatch from a Algiers, it is still not known where: the three: Europeans..are~ being. ‘s. held who were arrested May 9, as indicated in the June 4 issue:of:: 4 Le Monde. Those involved, according to the dispatch, are Mlle it Claudia Bobillier, who holds a scholarship granted. by the Algerian -government and who is registered with the Swiss consulate although she is reported’ to'also hold French’ citizenship;:Mlle Lourdain, a social worker: in the’ Kabylia;: -finally,:Mme Suzanne Zakine, dressmaker, the widow of a French doctor who was a:member of.the © a 2 ‘Fourth International anda personal friend: of: Trotsky. (It. was at this doctor's clinic that the wife of the Russian revolutionist died three years | ago. He himself died in Algiers last: Novenber. )
"The French and Swiss embassies in Algiers asked for an explanation from the Algerian government last Friday concerning what had happened to these persons, who, almost a:month after. |. =: their arrest, have not yet been charged. Contrary to certain rumors, it appears excluded that these: arrests had any relation whatsoever with the escape of M. Ait Ahmed. Lub
"In addition it has been learned that the | six. Algerians held as political prisoners who went on a hunger strike two months ago have left the hospital at Annaba (formerly Béne). This includes MM. Mourad Lahmoudi (transferred to the prison at Bou- Saada), Jacques Salort (transferred to Aflou); Hocine Zahouane, Bachir Hadj Ali and Mohamed Harbi (transferred to Mondovi) and William Sportisse (whose present place of detention is not known). These prisoners ended their hunger strike : On: April ae
"As for the sixty-one held ‘at the. central prison in. El Harrach (formerly Maison-Carrée), who went on a solidarity hunger strike, a dozen seem to have been released, while the others have been separated: and placed in various prisons."
[Dr. Raphael | Zakine, an ‘Algerian. by birth, was a well- leriown French Trotskyist leader who supported the Algerian Revolution’ ° ae
from the beginning: He played an attiveirole in.getting aid for it.
{After.the victory in 1962, he returned to Algiers. Due to a heart condition,.his: activities weré’ ‘limited, but he had . innumerable: contacts in the Algerian labor movement as well as in the nationalist movement. Up to the time of his death, he’ mnain~.... tained these, He was such a prominent political figure. that the | Boumedienne regime, did not dare touch him. It appears that the ... widows. is now taking his revenge on the dead revolutionist's widow