Zohra Drif

Zohra Drif (Arabic: _ar. زهرة ظريف) is a retired lawyer and longtime senior member of the Algerian senate. She is best known for her activities on behalf of the National Liberation Front during the Algerian War of Independence.

Milk Bar Café bombing

Drif was twenty years old and a student in the Faculty of Law at the University of Algiers when, on 30 September, 1956, she set a bomb in the Milk Bar cafe, which killed three French youths and injured dozens. She was captured in early October 1957 along with Saadi Yacef, reportedly her boyfriend at the time, at No. 3 Rue Caton in the Casbah of Algiers by Lt. Colonel Jeanpierre and his 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment.cite news
title = Capture of the Chief
publisher = Time Magazine
date = 1957-10-07
url = http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,809954,00.html
accessdate = 2006-10-04] In August 1958, she was sentenced to 20 years of hard labour by the military tribunal of Algiers for terrorism and was locked up in the women's section of the Barbarossa prison. She published a 20-page treatise, entitled "The death of my brothers" ( _fr. la Mort de mes frères), in 1960, while still in prison. She was pardoned by Charles de Gaulle on the occasion of Algerian independence in 1962.cite news
last = Maclean
first = William
title = 50 years on, Algiers bomber sees US "error" in Iraq
publisher = Reuters
date = 2005-09-28
url = http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=inDepthNews&storyID=2006-09-28T154801Z_01_L25689397_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-ALGERIA-BOMBER.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C3-inDepthNews-2
accessdate = 2006-10-04]

Personal life

Drif is reported to be a close friend of Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

References

See also

* Café Wars
* The Battle of Algiers - 1966 film based on real events

External links

* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_200301/ai_n9221803 Letter to Zohra Drif] , by Hélène Cixous