Lebjaoui, however, who held no love for Boumedienne, denied to the author that he was in any way implicated; nor, he insists, was Abane’s arch-enemy, Ben Bella. Ait Ahmed, however, claimed to the author in 1986 that, following Abane’s death, Ben Bella and the other four F.L.N. leaders then in the Santé Prison signed documents supporting his “execution”; only Ait Ahmed himself had refused, on the grounds that he was fundamentally opposed to all “liquidations”. To Ait Ahmed, also, “Without Abane there would have been no F.L.N.—he was the political head.”

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 725