Carlos The Jackal Faces New Paris Trial

The British newspaper the Guardian reports that the international terrorist and convicted murderer known as Carlos the Jackal will stand trial again in Paris, France.

Already in a French prison for life for the murder of two policemen and an informant, this trial will determine Carlos' role in four bombings that killed 11 people.

He was the son of a millionaire lawyer who became one of the world's most wanted men: a globe-trotting criminal mastermind and self-styled professional revolutionary said to have been responsible for bombings, hijackings and shootings across the world. They called him Carlos the Jackal.

Now, some three decades after he spread terror across the globe, the Jackal, whose real name is Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, is set to face trial in Paris in a case that could decide whether he ever steps outside a prison again.

You can read the rest of the newspaper story via the below link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/carlos-the-jackal-paris-trial?newsfeed=true

You can also read an earlier post about the terrorist and his friends and supporters, the Communist East German Stasi secret police, as well a link to a story about the outstanding film made about him (which he reportedly hated), via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/10/rescued-from-stasi-shredder-carlos.html

You're a Terrorist, a Murderer, in Prison for Life, Called a Jackal, and You're Concerned About Your Image Now?

I read an interesting piece in the Washington Post about how Ilich Ramirez is suing a documentary film company over the “intellectual property” rights to his name and “biographical image.”

Ramirez, better known as “Carlos the Jackal,” is a former terrorist and murderer who is currently serving a life sentence in Paris, France for killing two French security agents.

Ramirez was, and apparently remains, an egomaniac. He was a rich, spoiled child who played at being a terrorist. He enjoyed being in the international spotlight in the 1970s and he didn’t mind having to bomb, shoot and kill people to be there.

Although he committed some truly awful criminal acts, this vicious coward was hardly “the most dangerous man in the world,” as some journalists, novelists and film makers made him out to be. He loved and encouraged the over-blown publicity, even adopting the name “Carlos the jackal,” which a reporter called him after finding a copy of Frederick Forsyth’s first-class thriller The Day of the Jackal in his abandoned belongings.

Forsyth’s character was a shadowy, highly efficient, professional assassin. Ramirez was none of these things. Perhaps Frederick Forsyth should sue Ramirez.