Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known worldwide as Carlos the Jackal, is a former Venezuelan terrorist whose figure is associated with numerous international terrorist attacks in the 1970s and 1980s. Born on October 12, 1949 in Caracas, he was a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and became one of the most notorious terrorists of his time, participating in attacks such as the assault on the OPEC conference in Vienna in 1975 and several bombings in Europe. Ramírez Sánchez comes from an upper-middle-class family in Venezuela. His father, a communist lawyer, named him Ilich in honor of Lenin.
He studied at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, funded by the Communist Party of Venezuela, where he deepened his communist ideas. After being expelled from university, he moved to Jordan, where he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and trained in guerrilla tactics.
Links with Cuba: Ramírez Sánchez took refuge in Cuba in the late 1970s, where he received support and training from the Cuban regime, which at the time was supporting several international terrorist movements, especially in the context of the Cold War. He is credited with having been trained by the Cuban authorities in guerrilla and terrorism techniques. Although the Cuban regime has never officially confirmed their relationship, it is known that Cuba was a refuge for several members of left-wing terrorist organizations during this period, and Carlos the Jackal is believed to have been one of them. On several occasions, the figure of Ramírez Sánchez was used as a symbol of the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle.
In the 1990s, after having committed several deadly attacks, he was finally arrested in 1994 in Sudan and extradited to France, where he was convicted of a series of crimes.
He has denied any role in the bomb attacks in France in 1982 and 1983 that killed 11 people.
The 62-year-old was captured by French special forces in Sudan in 1994.
By that time he had earned global notoriety as a mastermind of deadly bomb attacks, assassinations and hostage-takings.
It was the discovery of fresh evidence that led to him being tried for the bomb attacks in Paris and Marseilles that also left more than 140 people injured.
During his trial, Ramirez described himself as a "man of combat" and a "professional revolutionary".
In his five-hour closing statement on Thursday, he said: "I am a living archive. Most of the people of my level are dead."
He also read a text in memory of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who is known to have funded anti-Western attacks.
Deadly bombings The first bombing, in March 1982, was on a train between Paris and Toulouse, killing five people and wounding 28. It was followed a month later by the car bombing of an anti-Syrian newspaper in Paris. One passer-by was killed and 60 injured. The other two bombings took place on New Year's Eve 1983, with a bomb on a TGV fast train between Marseille and Paris that killed three people and wounded 13, and a bomb at a Marseille train station that killed two.
Photograph by Ilich Ramírez of a fake Peruvian passport, with the name Carlos Andrés Martínez Torres
Protests by Chavistas in Venezuela demanding that Ilich Ramírez Sánchez be repatriated
Today I found out that there is a French film
Carlos https://g.co/kgs/mwhdN2C