Ahmed Zaoui () 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 Objections from the Security Intelligence Service were withdrawn in September 2007, allowing him to remain in New Zealand.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. Background Before 1991 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. 1991–2000: Algeria and Europe 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. In 1993, Zaoui fled to Europe. He was tried and convicted in absentia by the Algerian government and was convicted of "establishing a terrorist organisation to destabilise state institutions and terrorise the population" and for "plotting against the state, criminal conspiracy, inciting armed rebellion and assassinations and destruction of property" in May 1996, and February 1997, respectively. Both convictions carry sentences of life imprisonment. Disputing the reports from Interpol as incomplete, Zaoui claimed and the New Zealand Refugee Status Appeals Authority (RSAA) found that there were six life sentences against him, as well as two death sentences. Human rights groups have criticised the Algerian trials for contravening basic norms of justice. In March 1994, Belgium charged him with being "the instigator or the head of a criminal organisation" and two charges of using false passports. He was acquitted at his first trial but was convicted