________________________________________________________________________
Jury convicts 'Carlos the Jackal' of triple murder
Copyright ) 1997 Nando.net
Copyright ) 1997 The Associated Press
PARIS (December 23, 1997 10:07 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net) -- The
unrepentant revolutionary known as "Carlos the Jackal" was sentenced to
life in prison Wednesday for murdering three people in 1975. "Viva la
revolucion!" Ilich Ramirez Sanchez proclaimed after the verdict.
Ramirez smiled at the audience and shook his fist in the air as police
guards ushered him from the courtroom.
The verdict capped an eight-day trial in which the Venezuelan-born
Ramirez, linked to some of the Cold War's most sensational terrorist
attacks, was unable to refute evidence tying him to the 1975 shootings
of the two French investigators and a Lebanese national in an apartment
in Paris' Latin Quarter.
The nine-member jury deliberated for nearly four hours before convicting
Ramirez of the shootings of investigators Raymond Dous and Jean
Donatini, and pro-Palestinian militant Michel Moukharbal, who Ramirez
said betrayed him.
The two agents of the DST -- France's FBI -- were investigating attacks
earlier that year on Israel's El Al airlines at Orly Airport when they
were gunned down.
In a final four-hour plea to the jury, Ramirez called the proceedings a
political show trial. "There is no law for me," said the dapper and
graying revolutionary born to a Venezuelan Marxist lawyer who gave him
Lenin's middle name.
Before Judge Yves Corneloup halted Ramirez' monologue and sent the jury
to deliberate behind closed doors, the defendant said he was unafraid of
spending the rest of his life behind bars.
"They want to sentence me to life in prison. I'm 48 years old, so it
could be another 40 or 50 years. That doesn't horrify me," Ramirez said.
In his rambling harangue to the jury, Ramirez stuck to the theme he has
maintained throughout the trial: that he is a political combatant with a
"love of revolution and love of justice."
"I am a political prisoner," he said, speaking confidently in heavily
Spanish accented French from notes in a red notebook.
Captured by French agents in Sudan three years ago, Ramirez had long
been inactive, ever since his support dried up with the Cold War's end.
Once feared as a terrorist mastermind and now sounding like a windy
anachronism, he elicited virtually no reaction from the public during
the proceedings.
At one point, a young couple wearing traditional Palestinian scarves
around their necks who had sat through much of the trial, raised their
fists and Ramirez reciprocated the salute.
He called the Palestinian cause "a worldwide war and a war the world
will win" and condemned Israel as a "terrorist nation." During the trial
he repeatedly called his arrest "a Zionist plot" and that the 1975
killings were masterminded by Mossad, the Israeli secret service.
Ramirez' leading lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, said the defense would
appeal the verdict.
"It was not a just trial. He was convicted on political grounds," she
told reporters after the verdict. "I consider that the decision comes
from outside interests, especially America and Israel.
The shootings were not the most notorious cases tied to the man who
became known as "Carlos the Jackal."
By his own count, he killed 83 people before his capture. Among other
attacks, he was linked to the 1975 seizure of OPEC oil ministers in
Vienna and the 1976 hijacking of an Air France jet to Entebbe, Uganda.
Ramirez was captured in Khartoum, Sudan, on Aug. 14, 1994, and taken to
Paris by French agents. He had been convicted in absentia of the three
shooting deaths two years earlier, but French law mandated a retrial
once he was in custody.
Since the start of the trial, the defense sought three witnesses to the
shootings, which took place in a Latin Quarter apartment rented by a
friend of Ramirez.
But prosecutors claimed they were unable to find the witnesses in
question, all Latin American students studying in Paris. Instead, the
court heard 22-year-old depositions given by witnesses shortly after the
shootings.
Defense attorneys contended the evidence at the trial was fabricated and
the testimony was not credible.
In an impassioned plea earlier Tuesday, lawyer Olivier Maudret also
assured the jury that Ramirez would not go free even if acquitted.
Ramirez is also under investigation in France for four terrorist
attacks.
"What I propose is acquittal," Maudret said. "The solution to acquit
should not shock you: Carlos will not leave jail.
"I don't ask it for Carlos, but for us, for our country, what it does
best, in the name of law and truth."
Prosecutor Gino Necchi asked for a life sentence for Ramirez because the
victims were unarmed. Ramirez previously had risked a maximum 30-year
prison term if convicted in the killings.
By DEBORAH SEWARD, Associated Press Writer
________________________________________________________________________
The terrorist attacks attributed to 'Carlos the Jackal'
Copyright ) 1997 Nando.net
Copyright ) 1997 Agence France-Presse
PARIS (December 23, 1997 10:07 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net) - Ilich
Ramirez Sanchez, the international terrorist known as "Carlos" who was
sentenced Wednesday to life imprisonment for three 1975 murders, is held
responsible for numerous terrorist attacks.
Here is a list of attacks Carlos is suspected of having been involved
in.
Many of the attacks listed were claimed by Carlos in a rare interview of
1979 in the Arab-language publication Al Watan al Arabi. He has since
denied giving the interview.
- Dec 30, 1973: British Jewish businessman Joseph Sieff, whose family
founded the Marks and Spencer chain, seriously injured by shots to the
face in London.
- Jan 24, 1974: Bomb hurled into Israeli bank Hapoalim in London.
Several people injured.
- Aug 3, 1974: Three car bomb attacks against newspaper offices in
Paris.
- Sept 13, 1974: French ambassador at The Hague, Jacques Senard, taken
hostage with 10 others.
Carlos in 1979 said the attack aimed to help free Yutaka Furuya, of the
extremist Japanese Red Army. Furuya was arrested at Paris's Orly airport
on July 26, 1974, on arrival from Beirut. He was freed and the
kidnappers at The Hague allowed to fly to safety.
- Sept 15, 1974: Two grenades thrown into the Drugstore cafe in Paris.
Two killed, 30 injured. The Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), which Carlos had fought with, claimed responsibility.
Carlos said in the interview the attack secured the release of Yutaka
Furuya in exchange for the hostages in The Hague.
- Jan 13/19, 1975: Two bazooka attacks against Israeli airline El Al at
Paris's Orly airport.
- June 27, 1975: During an attempt to arrest Carlos in a Paris
apartment, he shoots dead two French police officers and former comrade
turned informer, Lebanese Michel Moukharbal. In 1992, Carlos was
sentenced in his absence to life imprisonment for the killings.
- Dec 21, 1975: A commando led by Carlos takes 70 OPEC members,
including 11 ministers hostage at a conference in Vienna. Three people
were killed, the commando flew to safety and received 50 million dollars
ransom.
- July 20, 1981: Romanian journalist working for "Radio Free Europe"
stabbed to death in Munich by a man speaking with a French accent.
- Sept 4, 1981: French ambassador in Beirut, Louis Delamare, shot dead
in his car. Carlos suspected of involvement.
- March 29, 1982: A bomb kills five people on a Toulouse-Paris train
which then mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, was scheduled to take. The
bomb followed an ultimatum issued by Carlos after the arrest of two
comrades, Swiss Bruno Breguet and German Magdalena Kopp, charged with
possessing arms.
- April 22, 1982: A car bomb explodes outside the magazine Al Watan Al
Arabi in Paris, killing one and injuring 63, the same day the trial of
Kopp and Breguet opened.
- Aug 25, 1983: A bomb outside the French cultural center in Berlin
kills one and injures 23.
- Dec 31, 1983: Two bombs explode in Marseille. One killed three and
injured 19 on a train to Paris, the other exploded in a station in
Marseille, killing two and injuring 34.
There were several claims of responsibility, including one from the
Organization for the Armed Arab Struggle, a group linked to Carlos.
- Jan 1, 1984: A bomb explodes in the French cultural center in Tripoli,
Lebanon. The Organization for the Armed Arab Struggle claimed
responsibility.
- June 1, 1992: Carlos sentenced in his absence to life imprisonment in
France.
- Aug 15, 1994: Carlos captured in Sudan and brought to Paris.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Carlos The Jackal' convicted, sentenced to life in prison
December 23, 1997
Web posted at: 7:46 p.m. EST (0046 GMT)
PARIS (CNN) -- A French jury convicted Carlos "The Jackal" of murder
Tuesday after the defendant gave a rambling, three-hour harangue in
which he said "there is no law for me." A judge sentenced him to life
in prison.
"When one wages war for 30 years, there is a lot of blood spilled --
mine and others," the defendant said. "But we never killed anyone for
money, but for a cause -- the liberation of Palestine."
The 48-year-old Venezuelan revolutionary, who was born Ilich Ramirez
Sanchez, was charged with shooting to death two French secret agents
and a pro-Palestinian Lebanese turned informer. He is also blamed for
more than 80 killings and hundreds of injuries around the world
during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Prosecutor Gino Necchi argued Monday that the evidence "fully
supports" a guilty verdict and urged the jury to send Carlos to
prison for the rest of his life.
In his final plea, Ramirez, who defended himself, stuck to the theme
he has sounded throughout the trial: that he is a political combatant
with a "love of revolution and love of justice."
'I am a political prisoner'
"The Jackal"
"I am a political prisoner," the dapper, graying militant said,
reading confidently from notes.
Carlos, who was captured in Sudan in 1994 after two decades on the
run and smuggled to France in a sack, was retried for the three 1975
killings after receiving a life sentence in his absence five years
ago.
He spoke at length Tuesday about the Palestinian cause, for which he
fought for many years, calling it "a worldwide war and a war the
world will win," and condemning Israel as a "terrorist nation."
During the trial -- held before a nine-person jury and three judges
-- Ramirez often referred to his arrest and imprisonment as a
"Zionist plot" and said the 1975 killings were orchestrated by the
Mossad, the Israeli secret service.
Once a star among international guerrillas and feared as a terrorist
mastermind, Carlos now looks more like a smartly-dressed middle-aged
executive.
He is widely accused of carrying out the 1975 seizure of OPEC oil
ministers and was involved in the 1976 Palestinian hijacking of a
French jetliner to Entebbe, Uganda, which ended with an Israeli
commando raid.
He has proudly claimed "moral responsibility" for all the attacks of
the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), but
has neither denied nor claimed the killings for which he is now on
trial.
Eyewitnesses didn't testify
Police say three eyewitnesses described Carlos' role in the shootings
to them within hours of the event, although none of the three could
be found for the trial.
Key dates in the life of 'Carlos the Jackal'
1949: Ilich Ramirez Sanchez born in Venezuela to wealthy communist
lawyer, who gave his son Lenin's middle name.
___________________________________________
1964: Joins Communist Students Movement in Venezuela. Goes for guerrilla
training in Cuba.
___________________________________________
1968: Begins study at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, famous as
training ground for future terrorists and KGB recruits.
___________________________________________
1970: Joins the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Begins
terrorist career.
___________________________________________
1970-1982: Key attacks linked to Carlos include massacre of Israeli
athletes at Munich Olympics, seizing OPEC oil ministers in Vienna,
hijacking of Air France plane to Entebbe, half-a-dozen attacks on French
targets.
___________________________________________
1992: Convicted by a French court in absentia for 1975 killing of two
French counterintelligence agents and Lebanese citizen.
___________________________________________
1994: Carlos arrested in Sudan. Transferred to France where he jailed in
solitary confinement in maximum-security prison.
___________________________________________
1997: Carlos stands trial for the 1975 killing of the French
counterintelligence agents and the Lebanese citizen. French law requires
retrial upon repatriation.
The prosecution said Carlos boasted of the killings in letters to
several friends, in a newspaper interview, in a telephone
conversation with an associate who later wrote about their chat in a
book, and in conversations with diplomats seized during his most
daring escapade -- the kidnapping of the 11 oil ministers in 1975.
Prosecutors' evidence has included fingerprints on a whiskey bottle
and glasses at the apartment; fingerprints on a postcard addressed to
a Venezuelan friend of Ramirez; and accounts of conversations from
his former friends and lovers.
Prosecutor Gino Necchi asked for a life sentence because the victims
-- inspectors Raymond Dous and Jean Donatini, and Michel Moukharbal,
a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- were
unarmed.
But Olivier Maudrut, Carlos' lawyer, questioned why the court has
heard 22-year-old depositions rather than the witnesses, and why only
a photograph was displayed of a key letter said to be in Carlos'
handwriting.
In that letter, prosecutors said, he wrote of how Moukharbal betrayed
him and was then sent "to a better world."
"A person cannot be condemned to life in prison based on a
photocopy," Maudret said.
Suspected in 3 other bombings
At times angry and brimming with hate, at other times cracking jokes
and poking fun at himself, Carlos took an active role in his own
defense during the eight-day trial, frequently jumping to his feet
with a sarcastic remark or to question a witness in his
Spanish-accented French.
Carlos' current trial is likely to be only the first step on a long
judicial path.
French anti-terror magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere is investigating
him for three Paris bombings that killed five people in 1974 and
1982, a 1983 bombing that killed five in Marseille's train station
and two attacks on French trains in which seven people died in 1982
and 1983.
He is also wanted in Germany for the bombing of Berlin's French
cultural center, and in Austria for the 1975 kidnapping of the 11
OPEC oil ministers in Vienna.
Reuters contributed to this report.
) 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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