Early Life
The eldest of seven children, he grew up in a town west of Algiers, and graduated from high school in 1988. In 1984 Ressam traveled to Paris, France, for special medical treatments and it was his first time out of Algeria. Ressam failed the exams to college and applied for jobs with police or security forces but was turned down. Over the next four years he worked with his father in a coffee shop.
He left Algeria on September 5, 1992 due to the civil war outrage in the country, entering France on a forged Moroccan passport in the name of "Nassar Ressam". He was arrested on immigration violations in Corsica, a territorial collectivity of France, in November 1993, and France deported him to Morocco on November 8, 1993, and banned him from returning for three years. Morocco determined that he was not in fact Moroccan, however, and returned him to France. Faced with a March 1994 hearing, he instead flew to Montreal, Canada.
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