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Carlos gets his day in court
In this story: December 12, 1997
Undated photos of Ramirez
Web posted at: 8:43 p.m. EST (0143 GMT)PARIS (CNN) -- "My name is Illich. My family name is Ramirez Sanchez. I was born on October 12, 1949, in Caracas."
So said the man known as Carlos the Jackal, who quickly dispelled any doubts Friday about his revolutionary zeal at the start of his trial on charges of murdering two French secret agents and their informer in 1975.
"My profession is professional revolutionary," he declared in a four-hour opening session.
He demanded that the murder charges against him be dismissed. "The world is my domain."
Portly and graying in a cream polo shirt and ascot, he looked more like a debonair banker on holiday than an international terrorist.
"I deny the right of French justice as it is currently constituted to judge me," he said in a speech denouncing the "monstrous arbitrariness" of the trial.
"I can't be judged because of the conditions of my arrest," Ramirez said, referring to his capture in Sudan in August 1994. He was reportedly given an injection before French agents spirited him, in a sack, to France.
It was the first time the public had a close-up look at the man who existed for decades only in grainy photographs. He eluded authorities for decades, carrying out attacks that by his own count left 83 dead.
Mastermind of deadly bombings
Scenes from various crimes attributed to the Jackal Illich Ramirez Sanchez, 48, gained international notoriety as the Cold War-era mastermind of deadly bombings, assassinations and hostage dramas.
He was linked to the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and carried out the 1975 seizure of OPEC oil ministers. He was involved in the 1976 Palestinian hijacking of a French jetliner to Entebbe, Uganda, that ended with an Israeli commando raid.
After eluding capture for decades, Ramirez now is being tried for the Paris killings of two French investigators and a man in the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine whom Ramirez suspected as an informer.
With thinning hair and mustache, the native Venezuelan -- once known as a ladies' man -- beamed at the six women in the nine-member jury as they took their places, drawing muffled laughter from the public.
But the ruddy-faced Ramirez then grew serious, taking his defense into his own hands to argue that the case should be thrown out.
After two brief recesses, the judge adjourned the trial without ruling on the request. The trial resumes Monday.
Repeatedly describing himself as a "professional revolutionary in the old Leninist tradition," Ramirez said he was fighting "for humanity, for the people of Palestine, for the people of France" and against what he called "American imperialism and the Zionist state."
No spectacular revelations
A lawyer for Carlos, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, made vague hints about her client's strategy.
Security was tightened around the court "If the court does not respect the law, we will draw our own conclusions," she added enigmatically. When asked what these would be, she said: "You'll see."
Coutant-Peyre, a militant left-winger hired after Carlos dismissed a sting of counsels, said she would take a back seat to her client, who would defend himself and make a statement "of interest to the whole world."
But she hinted he would not make any spectacular revelation about his trail of guerrilla acts.
His lawyer said Carlos had been kidnapped illegally and should be released immediately. In the three years Carlos has been in prison, his lawyers have made that argument in French courts and lost every time.
The trial was due to last one week. Ramirez faces 30-year prison term for each killing. He was convicted in absentia in 1992, but French law requires a retrial upon returning.
Sharpshooters were deployed around the courthouse for the week-long trial and all entrances were equipped with body scanners. The jurors, their alternates and the three judges were given two bodyguards and a chauffeur each.
Son of a wealthy Communist
Once known as a crack marksman with a flair for dancing and seduction, the son of a wealthy Communist lawyer fell hard after his capture.
Carlos lived beyond the grasp of Western governments behind the Iron Curtain for years, but life on the run became harder when his East bloc protectors vanished with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. And when his main Middle Eastern protectors no longer wanted him, the French made their move.
Ramirez has sat behind bars reading up on French law and studying the language in preparation for the trial.
Back on June 27, 1975, Ramirez was posing as a 26-year-old student in a tiny Latin Quarter apartment in a side street near the Sorbonne, when the two unarmed investigators knocked.
Raymond Dous and Jean Donatini, of the Direction de la Securite du Territoire -- France's FBI -- were investigating an attack on Israel's El Al airlines at Paris' Orly Airport that January.
Arriving at 9 Toullier St. with the two investigators was Michel Moukharbal, a Palestinian Front militant arrested earlier that month. Moukharbal pointed to Ramirez as a suspect and, prosecutors say, Ramirez opened fire, killing him and the two agents before fleeing the country.
Ramirez' fingerprints on the pistol and his own later description of the killings have given the prosecution a strong case. But observers say he might use his knowledge of terrorist networks to eventually deal his way out of jail.
Correspondent Jim Bittermann, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Terrorist Carlos the Jackal to stand trial for 1975 murders - December 12, 1997
- Infamous terrorist charged in '74 Paris cafe bombing - February 23, 1996
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