Career
As Ouali, he got arrested and tortured by Moroccan police during the Tan-Tan demonstrations (25–27 May). In 1975, he was part of the Information committee of the POLISARIO, where he became known as a journalist. Shortly after, he became the editor in chief of the Sáhara Libre newspaper.
From 1981, he started to manage as POLISARIO representative, first for Europe, then for France and Sweden.
Subsequently, he was councelor to the presidency of the SADR, and to the Sahrawi Commission for the Referendum. In 1995, he returned to his old post as POLISARIO representative for France.
Briefly, he occupied in 1999 the SADR"s Ministry of Information, being one of the founders of the Sahrawi Republic official press agency, the Sahara Press Service. In 1998 he wrote the book Les Sahraouis, published by the French editorial L"Harmattan.
In 2001 he was designated as POLISARIO representative for the United Kingdom and Ireland.
That year he wrote the book Louisiana République Sahraouie ("The Sahrawi Republic"), where he reviews the history and the structure of the SADR. In the night of 5–6 May 2002, Fadel Ismail died in Brixton, London, due to an asthma crisis, followed by a heart attack. Few days after his decease, Sahrawi students in El Aaiun renamed the "Hassan II school" as "Mohamed Fadel Ismail school". Also, an Italian solidarity association from Mantova was named "Associazione Fadel Ismail" in his honour.
A Sahrawi press and cultural centre in Algiers was named "Mohamed Fadel Ismail" in 2004 in his honour.