The notorious Venezuelan, who described himself as an “international revolutionary” had been writing the bloodiest chapters of the worldwide terrorism for nearly three decades.
El Gordo Swore That the Whole World Would Hear of Him
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez was born in Caracas on October 12, 1949. His father, Jose Altagracia Ramirez Navas, was a successful lawyer and a devout Marxist. His mother, Elba Maria Sanchez, was a well-educated and cultured woman and a devoted Catholic who lost the first battle for her three sons. Despite her greatest wish to give their children traditional Christian names, her husband called them after the leader of the world’s first socialist revolution: Vladimir (b. 1958), Ilich (b.1949) and Lenin (b. 1951).
Ilich Ramirez was a tall and heavily built child and was dubbed “El Gordo” (Fatso). This nickname made him really upset and his usual reply to his friends’ teases was: “The whole world will hear of me”. However, the playmates accepted Ilich as their leader: “He was the most organized and the one who took the initiative and made the rules”, John Follain, a journalist and writer, quoted a Ramirez’s boyhood friend, who added that Ilich loved to play at “goodies and baddies” and “hide-and-seek”.
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez Made His “Debut in the Revolutionary Movement”
At the age of 14, after the divorce of his parents, Ilich Ramirez joined the youth organization of the Venezuelan Communist Party where, as he said, he made his “debut in the revolutionary movement”. Or in other words, he took his first lessons in terrorism. Shortly afterwards, the teenager went to a guerilla warfare training camp in Cuba to improved his terrorism-related skills and sabotage techniques under the control of Soviet and Cuban instructors.
In 1966 Elba Sanchez and her sons moved to London. Ilich attended Stafford House College in Canterbury and two years later, under the influence of his father he went to Moscow and enrolled in Patrice Lumumba University. He was expelled from there in 1970 after he joined the protest of Arab students that was seen by the authorities as anti-Soviet.
Ilich Ramirez Became Carlos the Jackal
After being expelled from Patrice Lumumba University, Ilich Ramirez joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and attended its training camp in Jordan. There, a high-ranking PFLP’s officer gave him the code-name “Carlos”. “The Jackal” was given him by the Guardian a few years later when a copy of Frederick Forsyth’s bestseller “The Day of the Jackal” was found in Carlos’s belongings.
Shortly after the training course in Jordan, Ilich Ramirez returned to London. He began studying economics at the University of London and Russian language at Central London Polytechnic. Meanwhile, he led a lavish, playboy lifestyle attending select social gatherings where he made useful contacts and collected information that served well his activity within PFLP.
The Jackal’s Bloody Career
It started in London on December 30, 1973 with the assassination attempt against Joseph Edward Sieff, the president of the major British retailer Marks & Spencer and a highly respected member of the Jewish community in the city. Sieff was badly wounded in his head but survived. Carlos went on with a series of bomb attacks in London and Paris. He was intelligent and brave, cool-blooded and merciless, fluent in several languages and a master of disguise. So, he acquired a reputation as a perfect and elusive fighter.
Carlos launched his most infamous attack on OPEC’s (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) headquartersin Vienna on December 20, 1975. He and his six-member team succeeded to take over 60 hostages (three of whom were killed) including eleven oil ministers. After negotiations, the terrorists took forty-two of the hostages and escaped from Austria by an airplane. Carlos released the hostages and was “dismissed” from PFLP because he failed to kill two particular OPEC ministers, violating PFLP’s order.
After the “divorce” with PFLP, Carlos the Jackal began to work freelance. He organized his own group, the Organization of Arab Armed Struggle, recruiting fighters from Germany, Syria and Lebanon. Carlos was maintaining strong relationship with the German Baader-Meinhof terrorists and made contact with the secret services of East Germany (Stasi) and Romania (Securitate), fulfilling their orders to launch bomb attacks, murder dissidents, etc.
The End of Carlos’s “Revolutionary” Career
For nearly three decades, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez was among the most infamous terrorists in the world. He was the most wanted assassin in at least five European countries. Finally, the French intelligence service in collaboration with the Sudanese government caught him in a villa in the city of Khartoum on August 14, 1994 and transported him to Paris. Although Carlos publicly declared that he had killed more than 1500 people, he was sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of two French agents and their informant in 1975.
Carlos has been married three times. His first wife was the famous German terrorist Magdalena Kopp. She gave birth to their daughter Elba Rosa (b. 1986). In 2001, Carlos married his third wife, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, who is his lawyer, as well. The couple has a daughter, Sonia.
Sources:
Jackal: The Complete Story of the Legendary Terrorist, Carlos the Jackal by John Follain, Arcade Publishing, 1998
Communicating Terror:The Rhetorical Dimensions of Terrorism by Joseph S. Tuman, Sage Publications, Inc., 2003
Rumyana Mokanova - I am a Bulgarian journalist with a Master's Degree in journalism at St Clement of Ohrid University of Sofia and 15-year practice in daily ...
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