Ali La Pointe

Ali Ammar was born on 14 May, 1930 in Miliana, Algeria to a poor family. The family's financial situation did not allow him to attend school. His nickname "La Pointe" comes from the Point district in Miliana. While being imprisoned for the first time at the age of thirteen, he learned masonry. In 1945, he became known in Algeria for playing tchi-tchi, a type of gambling game scam, then as a pimp and acquired a sort of prestige. He was convicted for theft of military effects in 1943, rape in 1950, international assault and violence to an officer in 1952, and attempted homicide in 1953 and 1954.

In 1954, when the Algerian War broke out, he escaped from prison (the Prison de Barberousse) where he was serving a two-year sentence for attempted murder. FLN, Front de libération nationale (National Liberation Front), militants explained to him that Algiers was a victim of colonialism and recruited him to their cause. He later escaped again after being transferred to a prison in Damiette. He returned to Algeria and made contact a few months later with Yacef Saadi.

In late 1955, Ali la Pointe was introduced to Yacef Saâdi, who was Larbi Ben M'hidi's superior and the chief of FLN for the Zone autonome d'Alger, an ALN-FLN compound during the Algerian War. Yacef Saâdi "decided to test him", trusting him with the execution of an informer on the evening of their meeting. Recruited, according to Marie-Monique Robin for his "formidable qualities as a killer", he became, according to Christopher Cradock and M.L.R. Smith, "the chief assassin" for FLN. He was notably responsible for what was referred to as a "line up of the Casbah underworld with the nationalist terrorist movement" from an article by The New York Times. After some figures of the local underworld who were suspected of being informants were executed, such as Rafai Abdelkader, said Bud Abbot and Hocine Bourtachi, he "sowed terror" in the casbah, according to Marie-Monique Robin.