Ahmed Zaoui

Ahmed Zaoui (Arabic: أحمد الزاوي‎‎) is an Algerian member of the Islamic Salvation Front. He arrived in New Zealand on 4 December 2002 where he sought refugee status. Objections from the Security Intelligence Service were withdrawn in September 2007, allowing him to remain in New Zealand. He was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2014.

Ahmed Zaoui was born as one of ten children in El Idrissia, in Djelfa Wilaya, Algeria, and was the son of a Sunni Muslim imam. His family moved to the town of Médéa when he was young, and after completing high school, he enrolled in Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between the years of 1980 and 1985, gaining a Bachelor of Arts. He became engaged and married to an Algerian woman during this time. After returning, he took postgraduate studies at the University of Algiers and gained a position as an imam, and as an associate professor of theology at the University of Algiers.

In 1991, Algeria held its first multiparty elections since independence. Ahmed Zaoui stood as a candidate for the Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut or FIS). However, the government cancelled 1991 elections after the first round results showed that the FIS would win, citing fears that the Islamist party would end democracy. When the government then banned the FIS and arrested thousands of its members, Islamist guerrillas rapidly emerged and began an armed campaign against the government and its supporters which became the Algerian Civil War.

...
Wikipedia