67 years old. He argues that his profession is "revolutionary". Carlos the Jackal took an active role in four separate attacks in France in the early 1980s, and is held responsible for the deaths of 11 people and the injury of 200.
One of the Paris actions organized by the Jackal was held in front of the El Watan Al Arabi newspaper building on Marbeuf Street in 1982. One person was killed and 63 people were injured in the attack with a bomb-laden vehicle.
A month ago, a bomb placed on the Paris-Toulouse train caused 5 deaths and 77 injuries.
December 31, 1983: This time, France was shaken by a double attack: one on the Marseille-Paris high-speed train and the other at the Saint Charles train station in Marseille. 5 people were killed and 50 injured in the attacks.
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (born 12 October 1949), also known as Carlos the Jackal (Spanish: Carlos el Chacal) or simply Carlos, is a Venezuelan who conducted a series of assassinations and terrorist bombings from 1973 to 1985.
Carlos has never admitted to these accusations, but he hasn't denied them either.
He is known as the Bin Laden of the Carlos era, who is called the Jackal.
John Follain, biographer of the Jackal: “It represents the ancient age of international terrorism. The period of free Palestine and of course Marxism, when the real struggle, the so-called people's war, was Palestine. “Terrorism has developed so much that it resembles an old voice, an outdated melody in the desert around the world,” he said.
Born in Caracas in 1949, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez took the name Carlos when he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1970.
The year is 1975. Two separate attacks were carried out on the Orly airport, near Paris, on January 12 and 19, with rockets. The aim was to shoot down the planes of the Israeli aviation company EL AI. Both attacks were unsuccessful.
Carlos was behind it again.
It was the action at the OPEP building in Vienna on December 21, 1975, that made him iconic in the eyes of ultra-left activists and Arab revolutionaries. Carlos and his 5 collaborators took 66 hostages, including 11 oil ministers.
After days of negotiations, 50 hostages were released on 29 December. The commando who organized the incident fled to Algeria, where he released the ministers and sought political asylum. Three people died in the operation.
Sentenced to life imprisonment 3 times
The year 1997. Stopped by French police in Sudan in August 1994, Carlos was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 for killing two policemen and an informant.
Life story
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, nicknamed Carlos the Jackal, who took the name Salim Muhammed after converting to Islam, was born on March 25, 1949, in the Caracas hospital in Venezuela as a child of a Marxist family. He went to England with his mother and siblings in 1966 and went to university in London.
Carlos, who was a member of the Marxist youth organizations for a long time, began to fight against the occupying Israel in 1975 after undergoing rigorous training in the camps of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Carrying his struggle against Israel to the big cities of the West in the following years, Carlos attacked many banks, associations, newspapers, and embassies that have relations with Israel.
Carlos, who was declared the most wanted man in the world in 1980; managed to circumvent the CIA, Mossad, Interpol, and French intelligence many times.
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (Carlos the Jackal) has become a legend over time, especially with his success in not getting caught, his intelligence, and his courage. Dozens of books have been written about him and movies have been made about his life.
The fact that he took 70 people hostage, including 10 oil ministers, during the OPEC Meeting in Vienna, and smuggled the hostages to Algeria after the event, caused astonishment all over the world. Carrying out actions especially against France in the following years, Carlos became the nightmare of the French state for a while. After a chase that lasted for 25 years, Carlos was captured in 1994 as a result of a joint operation by French and Sudanese intelligence.
Carlos, who was tried by French judges for three years, defended for 4 hours in the decision court and concluded his words as follows:
"You do not have the right to judge me. Actually, I am judging you on behalf of the people you have exploited and left poor. My homeland is the whole earth. My brothers are also oppressed and exploited peoples."
Carlos the Jackal, who was sentenced to life imprisonment after the trial, married the French lawyer Isabella Coutant Peyre, whom he met during the trial.
While being held in a cell in Fleury Merogis Prison in France, he was transferred to a heavily guarded prison in Clairvaux. His wife was against this transplant because of his distance from health centers. He is currently in La Santé prison in Paris, having just survived an assassination attempt by the French undercover cops nicknamed the frog. As the isolation conditions worsened, he complains that no substantial attempt has been made by the French embassy to return to Venezuela, of which he is a citizen.
Carlos, who once believed in Marxism and later converted to Islam in 1975, took the name Salim Muhammed Nuri and is still in prison in France.