Hocine Ait Ahmed (born 20 August 1926 in Ain El Hammam , Kabylie) is an Algerian politician. He had achieved a Ph.D. in law when he split from the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1963 to found the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), a secularist Berber social democratic party. Later that year he was arrested and sentenced to death, but he managed to escape from El Harrach prison in 1966. He returned to Algeria from exile in Switzerland after the riots of 1988, but left the country again after the assassination of President Mohamed Boudiaf. During his presidential campaign in 1999, he suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized.