France has admitted to killing an Algerian freedom fighter

In a move aimed at improving its relations with former colony Algeria, France has admitted that its soldiers tortured and killed the Algerian lawyer and freedom fighter Ali Boumendjel, whose death in 1957 had until now been covered up as a suicide.

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37 years old at the time of his death, Boumendjel was an Algerian nationalist and independence activist when the North African country was under French colonial rule.

In 1957, French troops detained and placed him under solitary confinement during the Battle of Algiers, a part of the eight-year-long Algerian War of Independence. To pass off his death as suicide, Boumendjel was thrown from the sixth floor of a building after he was killed.

The conflict lasted until 1962, and ended with it 132 years of French domination.

Significance of the admission: Algeria, which celebrates sixty years of independence from France next year, welcomed the admission.