Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a Venezuelan-born militant whom the press called "Carlos the Jackal", was serving three life sentences in France when a Paris court confirmed the last of them in September 2021. Paris courts convicted him of the murder of two French security officers and a Lebanese man in 1975, of complicity in murder over four attacks in France in 1982 and 1983 that killed 11 people, and of the murder of two people in the Publicis drugstore attack of 1974. The first verdict came in December 1997, three years after French agents brought him from Sudan; the second in December 2011; the third in March 2017, more than four decades after the event. He denied any role in the 1982 and 1983 attacks and in the 1974 attack.
Ramirez Sanchez was born in Caracas on October 12, 1949. He was educated in London and then at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. He joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1970 and later became its military chief in Europe; by September 1974 he was 24 and already a member. In the following two decades he moved between Arab capitals and countries of the Eastern bloc and stayed out of the reach of Western police.
The 1975 seizure of an OPEC ministers' meeting in Vienna, in which 11 hostages were taken and three people died, is attributed to him, and press agencies describe him as its leader. None of his three French convictions concerns that event.
On September 15, 1974 an attack on the Publicis drugstore in Paris killed two people and injured 34.
Prosecutors said the attack was meant to pressure French authorities to release a Japanese Red Army member who had been arrested at Orly airport. The inquiry was dismissed for lack of evidence at first and was later reopened. In May 2016 France's highest appeals court rejected his challenge to being sent to trial, and he was brought before a Paris court on a charge of premeditated murder.
On June 27, 1975 two French security officers, Raymond Dous and Jean Donatini, and a Lebanese man, Michel Moukharbal, were killed in Paris. The Lebanese man is described as an informant.
A French court tried Ramirez Sanchez in his absence in June 1992 and sentenced him to life for the killings. French law required a new trial if he was ever taken, and that trial followed his capture.
Sudan's interior minister announced on Monday August 15, 1994 that Ramirez Sanchez had been arrested in Khartoum with a false diplomatic passport. A French ministry statement placed him in the custody of the DST, the domestic counterintelligence service, which flew him to Paris. Sudanese officials said their security agents handed him over. On August 16, 1994, at a closed hearing at the Palais de Justice, he appeared before Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the investigating judge who handled terrorism cases. The first charge brought that day concerned an attack in Paris in April 1982 that killed one person.
His lawyer at the time said he had been abducted from Sudan. The French government did not confirm that. At his 1997 trial Ramirez Sanchez argued that his detention was illegal and that he should not be tried.
The retrial for the 1975 killings opened on December 12, 1997 before the Paris assize court: three judges and nine lay jurors, presided over by Judge Yves Corneloup. The associations of victims of terrorism that sought to take part drew his objection. He described himself as a political militant in the Palestinian cause since 1970.
The prosecutor asked for life, which the court gave. The verdict came early on Wednesday December 24: a life sentence for the murder of Dous, Donatini and Moukharbal, matching the sentence given in his absence five years earlier. During the proceedings he interrupted witnesses and lectured the judge. At that point other investigations remained open: a Paris judge was looking into attacks in 1982 and 1983 and into the 1974 event.
The next trial concerned four attacks in France.
The first came on March 29, 1982 on the Paris to Toulouse line and killed five people and wounded 28. The second, on April 22, 1982 in Paris, killed one passer-by and wounded 60 (63 in an earlier count). Two followed on December 31, 1983: on a fast train between Marseille and Paris, where three people died and 13 were wounded, and in Marseille, where two died. In all, 11 people died. Well over a hundred people were wounded.
Prosecutors said the attacks were a response to the arrest of two members of his group. Judge Bruguiere had opened the investigation after inquiries in the 1980s. About 20 witnesses were expected at the 2011 trial, among them former associates.
The trial opened on Monday November 7, 2011 before the special terrorism court in Paris, presided over by Judge Laurent Olivier, and was due to run until December 16. Ramirez Sanchez was 62. He was charged with instigating the four attacks, on counts of complicity in murder and a related offense. His lawyer said there was no reason for a trial nearly 30 years after the events. Before it began he held a hunger strike, from 18 to October 27, to protest solitary confinement imposed after a radio interview. His lawyers said he had been denied access to trial materials, including two DVDs of 100,000 pages.
He told the court that nothing connected him to the four attacks and gave a monologue of about five hours. The prosecution asked for the maximum, a life sentence with a minimum term, and argued that he remained a danger to the public.
The seven magistrates of the court delivered their verdict on Thursday December 15, 2011. They found him guilty on all four counts and sentenced him to life with a minimum term of 18 years before any parole. His lawyers called the decision a scandal and said he would appeal.
Three co-accused were tried in their absence. Johannes Weinrich, a German held in Germany for other offenses, and Kamal al-Issawi, a Palestinian whose whereabouts were unknown, received life sentences. A third co-defendant was acquitted.
The appeal opened in May 2013 with a demand from Ramirez Sanchez for a new lawyer. His central argument was that evidence drawn from the files of the former East German state security service was unreliable. On Wednesday June 26, 2013 the appeal court rejected his appeal, upheld the life sentence and confirmed the acquittal of the third co-defendant. His lawyer said he would appeal again, describing the verdict as one given without a shred of proof.
The trial for the 1974 attack opened in March 2017 before a special Paris court of five judges; in French terrorism cases there is no jury. It lasted two weeks. Ramirez Sanchez was the only defendant. The prosecutor, Remi Crosson du Cormier, told the court that the evidence gathered pointed to him. The defense sought an acquittal, argued that heavy media coverage had influenced the judges, and objected to the absence of many witnesses and to a trial held after more than 40 years. Ramirez Sanchez called it an absurd trial, said he should not have to testify against himself and declined to cooperate with a court he did not recognise.
On Tuesday March 28, 2017, after about four hours of deliberation, the court found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to life, as prosecutors had requested. He was 67.
The appeal was heard on March 5, 2018. On Thursday March 15, 2018 the appeal court upheld the sentence, finding that the evidence showed he was the person responsible. His lawyer called the ruling a political decision and said an appeal to the highest court was likely.
In November 2019 the Court of Cassation set the ruling aside in part. It held that he should not have been convicted of two offenses that amounted to the same conduct, and it sent the case back on the question of sentence only. The remand trial took place before the special assize court of Paris on 22 and September 23, 2021. After more than two hours of deliberation the court rejected his bid to reduce the sentence and confirmed life. He was 71. In September 2021 he had been in French custody since 1994 and was serving three life sentences.
Terrorism cases in Paris go before a special court of professional magistrates, five in 2017 and seven in 2011, in place of the lay jurors of the ordinary assize court that tried him in 1997. A person sentenced in his absence must be tried again if captured, which is why the 1992 sentence was followed by the 1997 retrial. A life sentence in France can carry a minimum term before parole may be considered; in 2011 it was set at 18 years. The Court of Cassation does not rehear the facts. It reviews points of law, and in 2019 its ruling on a double conviction was the reason a third trial on the sentence took place.
Ramirez Sanchez denied involvement in the 1982 and 1983 attacks and in the 1974 attack. In the 1974 case he told the appeal court that no witness had ever said it was him. A 1979 magazine interview in which he is said to have admitted the attack was contested by him during the investigation; he later said he never gave it.
Claims linking him to other attacks abroad have never been tested in court. The Vienna raid of 1975 is attributed to him but was not tried in France. A French minister in 1994 put his total at 83 deaths worldwide, and a separate figure of 80 deaths is attributed to claims he made himself; neither figure has been tested in court.
October 12, 1949: born in Caracas.
1970: joins the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
September 15, 1974: attack in Paris; two killed, 34 injured.
June 27, 1975: Raymond Dous, Jean Donatini and Michel Moukharbal killed in Paris.
June 1992: sentenced to life in his absence for the 1975 killings.
August 15, 1994: arrest in Khartoum announced; August 16: before an investigating judge in Paris.
12 to December 24, 1997: assize court trial; life sentence for the 1975 murders.
November 7, 2011: trial opens on four attacks of 1982 and 1983.
December 15, 2011: convicted on all four counts; life with an 18-year minimum.
June 26, 2013: appeal rejected.
May 2016: highest appeals court rejects challenge to being sent to trial for 1974.
March 28, 2017: convicted of murder over the 1974 attack; life.
March 15, 2018: sentence upheld on appeal.
November 2019: Court of Cassation sets the ruling aside in part and remands on sentence.
September 23, 2021: Paris court confirms life sentence.