The director who brought you “Koko, A Talking Gorilla” and “The Charles Bukowski Tapes” is back. Barbet Schroeder’s latest documentary looks at the origins of modern terror through the life of a successful attorney. “Terror’s Advocate,” a documentary just released by Magnolia Pictures, studies the life of French-speaking attorney Jacques Verges. Verges, born in Thailand to a Vietnamese mother and a Reunion Island (a French colony off the east coast of Africa) father, first gained attention in the 1950s defending Algerians who terrorized their own country in protest of its French colonial government. The rebels, in this case a group of young women, exploded bombs in public places, but eventually were caught and proudly pleaded guilty to the crimes. They were sentenced to death by guillotine until Verges stepped in, stirred attention in the case around the world through the press and with wild courtroom antics, and succeeded in having their sentences commuted to prison terms. In one of the most powerful scenes in the film, Schroeder’s camera follows Verges and the group of women whose lives he saved into their old cell on death row. Verges, a man who in his long career has defended Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic and Klaus Barbie (a Nazi torturer), talks himself to the verge of tears as he speaks about the harsh treatment of the women. Sad and sensitive in one frame, confident and smoking an expensive cigar in the next, the key to Verges is his conviction to stay close to the action and fight for humane treatment of men and women who have not treated people the same way. Verges chooses not to see the contradiction, but instead focuses on the bigger lies and crimes committed by goverments who put these men and women on trial. “I can’t stand a man being humiliated, even an enemy,” says Verges in the film. “For a lone man to be insulted by a lynch mob … I was asked ‘Would I defend Hitler?’ I said ‘I would even defend Bush,’ as long as he agrees to plead guilty.”