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'Jackal' jury gets case after defendant rails against Israel
Copyright ) 1997 Nando.net
Copyright ) 1997 Agence France-Presse
PARIS (December 23, 1997 4:24 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net) - A jury
began deliberating murder charges against terrorist "Carlos the Jackal"
Tuesday night after a four-hour closing speech in which the defendant
lauded the Palestinian cause and decried the "McDonaldization" of
society.
The nine jurors plus presiding Assize Court Judge Yves Corneloup and his
two assessors got the case at 9:30 p.m. and were expected to deliver a
verdict later that night.
Carlos, a 48-year-old Venezuelan whose real name is Ilich Ramirez
Sanchez, was considered likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment, the
sentence already given him in absentia by a French court in 1992 for the
1975 murders of two French agents and a Lebanese informer.
The trial ended with the long, rambling speech in which Carlos
castigated the West and hailed the Palestinian cause, violent revolution
and war to the death.
Carlos spoke of "world war, war to the death, the war that humanity must
win against McDonaldization."
He praised his defence lawyers, notably Isabelle Coutant-Peyre as "the
daughter of an old French family, the real France."
He repeated that the 1975 murders of which he is accused were a set-up,
and blamed Israel, "the first terrorist state in history."
Carlos spoke incoherently of reported sightings of himself in Copenhagen
wearing bell-bottom trousers and begging, and of former Panamanian
president Manuel Noriega and Cuban intelligence agents.
Earlier another defence lawyer, Olivier Maudret, urged acquittal for the
accused, "not for Carlos, but in the name of the law and for the truth."
Carlos was brought to France by French agents from Sudan in 1994 after
almost 25 years on the run.
Coutant-Peyre spoke of a "trick" which she said was the work of the
Israeli secret service, Mossad, adding that the case was "built on a
lie, a plot, a manipulation.".
She said that "for 500 million south Americans and a billion Muslims,
Carlos is the fighter for a cause he chose, and not the 'bloody
mercenary' depicted by the French press."
Maudret said Carlos would probably spend the rest of his life behind
bars even if he were acquitted, because of other terrorist trials he
faces, and criticised judicial investigation of the case.
A court-appointed lawyer, Maudret said investigation of the 1975 murders
was "torpedoed by the secret service to cover up a state secret, and 22
years on, you are being asked to judge Carlos on the rotten foundations
of an aborted procedure."
Maudret said there was still a serious doubt about the identity of the
gunman who carried out the killings and asked why three "capital
witnesses" of the murders, friends of Carlos, had been freed before the
appointment of an investigating magistrate.
On Monday, to guffaws from the accused, prosecutor Gino Necchi called
for a life term for Carlos, saying the sentence he was asking for was
"not a question of war, of revenge, but of implementing the law of the
republic."
Apart from Tuesday's verdict, Carlos faces five other trials for
terrorist offences in the 1970s in which 13 people died.
Throughout his trial, the plump, greying Carlos has played for the
limelight, appearing to thoroughly enjoy the proceedings.
Relaxed, affable and intent on the minutiae of French judicial
proceedings, Carlos at times lent a tea-party atmosphere to the austere,
wood-panelled courtroom, waving to acquaintances on the crowded public
benches, or chatting and joking with his lawyers.
He readily interrupted the proceedings to correct points of detail, made
rambling speeches and recounted anecdotes that missed the point.
He has constantly argued that he was "kidnapped" in Sudan and that
therefore his trial is "illegal."
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