Ben M'hidi initially commanded Wilaya V (the military district in the Oran region) and played an important role at the FLN's Soummam conference in August 1956.

In 2000, General Aussaresses admitted that Ben M'hidi was executed whilst in his custody, however, the exact truth regarding his death remains a mystery to this day.

[5][6] Larbi Ben M'hidi was born sometime in 1923 to a marabout family descended from the Arab tribe of Ouled Derradj[7] in the village of El Kouahi, Ain M'lila, which was part of the Constantine department at the time.

[13] The PPA was disbanded following the 1945 Sétif riots, and was replaced in October 1946 by the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD), also headed by Messali Hadj.

[10] Ben M'hidi and eight other members of this movement soon grew impatient with Hadj, and decided to form the Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action (CRUA), on 30 March 1954.

At a meeting at the Climat de France, a house overlooking Bab El Oued, the FLN decided to launch an insurrection, which broke out in the early morning of 1 November 1954, and quickly escalated into the Algerian War.

Ben M'hidi was designated Wilaya V (Oran), however, he encountered exceptional difficulties as the area had been recently struck by an earthquake, and arms that were promised had not arrived.

On 25 June 1956, an FLN tract authored by Ben M'Hidi and Abane Ramdane declared: "All executions of combatants will be followed by reprisals.

[16] Ben M'hidi had criticized the "uselessly bloody operations" which had given a bad impression on public opinion, specifically citing Zighout's massacre at El-Halia which had occurred exactly one year previously.

Ben M'hidi was captured by Marcel Bigeard and his men on 23 February 1957 after receiving a tip-off provided by Roger Trinquier's network of informers.

[20][21] According to French sources, parachutists burst into an apartment on Rue Claude Debussy, in the European quarter, and arrested Larbi Ben M'hidi in his pajamas.

Ben M'hidi also appeared in video footage released by the French press, alongside Brahim Chergui, the liaison chief of the Zone Autonome d'Alger (ZAA) who was arrested on 24 February 1957.

Bigeard was impressed with Larbi Ben M'hidi's defiance and dignity, even though defeated, he proved that he was in no way of form broken, mentally, physically or spiritually.

[23] General Jacques Massu, however, was frustrated with Bigeard's slow progress, and arranged for Ben M'hidi to be transferred into the custody of Major Paul Aussaresses.

According to a report to the CCE on 4 March 1957 made by an FLN spy who had been working in the Algiers police headquarters, Bigeard "was unable to prevent Ben M’hidi being handed over to men of a 'special section' of the paratroops.

Under Aussaresses, Ben M'hidi was tortured, and then driven to an isolated farm 18 kilometres south of Algiers, where he was hanged – "to make it look like suicide".

[24][3] On 6 March 1957, Pierre Gorlin (Robert Lacoste's press officer) announced that Ben M'hidi "had committed suicide by hanging himself with strips of material torn from his shirt".