Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez (Jackal)

 

Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos Jackal, terrorist No.1 in the world, who has the blood of about one and a half thousand people on his hands, celebrated his 75th birthday on October 12. He will have to celebrate his anniversary in a French prison, where he has been serving a life sentence since 1994.

Six years ago, Carlos the Jackal wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking for Russian citizenship, but received no response. Meanwhile, 20 cultural figures from Russia, including writers and journalists, sent a petition to the French authorities asking them to pardon the terrorist.

Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez was born in Venezuela in 1949. His father was a successful, wealthy lawyer, which did not prevent him from professing Marxism and ardently worshipping the leader of the world proletariat, after whom he named his three sons: the eldest – Vladimir, the middle – Ilyich, the youngest – Lenin. It was the middle one, Ilyich, who absorbed his father's instructions about the world revolution the most diligently and joined the "Communist Youth of Venezuela" – the youth wing of the local communist party. However, in those years, the young revolutionary had not yet embarked on the bloody path of terrorism. After his parents divorced, Ilyich and his mother moved to London, and after a while, in 1968, he moved to Moscow, where he entered the Peoples' Friendship University. This was arranged by his influential father, who obtained a study grant for his son through the Soviet-Venezuelan Friendship Society.

Young Sanchez was not interested in studying, the dormitory commandants regularly complained about him because of the endless drinking and partying. And soon his study grant was withdrawn altogether. This happened due to a split in the youth wing of the Venezuelan Communist Party, during which Sanchez sided with the radical wing. As a result, he was expelled from the university. However, the future terrorist himself was even glad of this turn of events, as he longed for fun and dangerous adventures. Back in Moscow, he met Mohammed Budia, one of the leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who recruited young people with leftist views for "revolutionary" work in Europe. At his invitation, Sanchez came to an illegal militant and terrorist training camp in Jordan. There, his handlers quickly realized that Sanchez was the one they needed. He was active and literally eager to fight. At the same time, he was rich, knew several languages and had good communication skills. It was in the militant camp that Sanchez got his revolutionary nickname Carlos.

The bloody "debut" of Sanchez, now Carlos, took place on February 21, 1970, when he planted a bomb on a Swiss plane heading from Zurich to Tel Aviv. Two hundred people died as a result. In 1971, Carlos came to Europe and lived alternately in Paris and London. At that time, his task was to compile lists of potential victims – those who could be taken hostage or demonstratively killed. At the same time, Carlos took several mistresses in different countries. In their apartments, he arranged hiding places for secret documents and weapons. Carlos became more active in 1973, when he decided to avenge the death of his mentor Budia. He was blown up in his own car by the Israeli special services, who staged a real hunt for terrorist leaders after the murder of Israeli Olympic athletes. Carlos chose the president of Marks & Spencer, one of Europe's largest clothing companies, as his target. However, the attempt failed, and the victim survived the gunshot wound. The next terrorist attack, committed by Carlos in the London branch of the Israeli bank Apoalim, was also without casualties. The bomb thrown by the terrorist only caused minor damage to the building. Carlos' third terrorist attack, a car bombing near the offices of a number of French publications that "sympathized with Israel," was carried out with the aim of warning and intimidation and initially did not involve victims.

Soon Carlos received an assignment from his new boss, Mohammed Muharbal, to seize the French embassy in The Hague. His accomplices were supposed to be left-wing radical terrorists from the "Japanese Red Army." It was planned that the Japanese would break into the embassy and take the ambassador hostage. Carlos was supposed to meet them on the spot and participate in the operation with them. However, the Japanese arrived too late, and Carlos, in order not to attract attention to himself, left the meeting place. The Japanese arrived, broke into the building and seized Ambassador Senar, demanding a plane. Meanwhile, Carlos panicked. He was overcome by fear that the Japanese would surrender, and he decided to act alone. Carrying a hand grenade, he hurled it into a crowd of people near one of the kiosks and disappeared. Two people were killed and more than 30 were injured. Carlos later received a third life sentence for the attack. Just a month later, Carlos participated in a new terrorist attack on the orders of Muharbal, during which it was planned to enter the runway of Paris Orly airport and shoot down a landing airliner with a grenade launcher. The day of the operation was set for January 13, 1975, and the target was an Israeli airline El Al plane flying from New York. Carlos' accomplice was the German far-left radical Weinrich. They parked the car between the two airport terminals, within range of the runway for a grenade launcher shot, and waited. As the airliner was coming in for landing, Weinrich took out his weapon and began to aim. At that moment, airport security noticed him and raised a panic. In his haste, Carlos' accomplice missed. The second attempt was also unsuccessful, after which both terrorists jumped into the car and drove away. Carlos later contacted the media and promised to finish the job. At the same time, he had the audacity to actually repeat the attempted terrorist attack. Just four days later, he was at the airport with a new accomplice, a Palestinian. However, this time it was not possible to fulfill the bloody idea. There were a lot more people at the airport than usual, and Carlos and his accomplice couldn't take out the grenade launcher hidden in the toilet until the last moment. When they finally succeeded, and they ran with weapons to the plane, the guards opened fire on them. The terrorists had to take ten hostages and lock themselves in the toilet, demanding to provide a plane. In the commotion that ensued, Carlos managed to escape thanks to his European appearance.

The most amazing thing is that after a series of daring terrorist attacks, Carlos remained out of sight of law enforcement officers. Perhaps he would have succeeded for a long time if it had not been for the betrayal on the part of Muharbal. Being under police surveillance, he met with Carlos, and later during interrogation gave out possible places of his stay. A few days later, secret service agents raided the apartment of one of Carlos' many mistresses in the midst of a party going on there. But the terrorist was so clever that he shot Muharbal and all three agents who betrayed him and escaped through the window. However, soon law enforcement officers covered the network of Carlos's safe houses, as his former boss managed to give out their addresses before his death. Weapons, forged documents, lists of potential victims, and plans for terrorist attacks were found everywhere. So Carlos became the No. 1 terrorist in France overnight. The nickname "Jackal" stuck to Carlos with the light hand of one of the journalists, who drew attention to the thriller "The Day of the Jackal" discovered in one of the terrorist's hideouts.

The seizure of OPEC headquarters in Vienna on December 21, 1975, was the pinnacle of Carlos the Jackal's terrorist activities. Then a group of militants led by him broke into the building, shooting dead a policeman and one of the guards and taking several dozen hostages, including the Minister of the Oil Industry of Saudi Arabia and the Minister of Internal Affairs of Iran. After that, the terrorists demanded to provide them with a plane and read out the manifesto of the Palestinian terrorists every two hours on Austrian radio in French, threatening otherwise to start killing hostages. The Austrian authorities found the terrorists' demands quite acceptable. The next morning, the Jackal released some of the hostages, and left for the airport with the rest. The plane provided to the terrorists landed in Algeria, where Carlos released some more hostages. The Jackal was ordered by the leadership of the PFLP to kill the Saudi and Iranian ministers he had taken hostage, but instead he demanded a ransom and political asylum in Algeria. According to various estimates, the Jackal and his henchmen received from 20 to 50 million dollars for the release of the ministers.

After the operation in Vienna, the Jackal became the No. 1 terrorist in the whole world. Meanwhile, at a meeting of the leaders of the PFLP in Yemen, Carlos was expelled from the ranks of the organization for not following orders to eliminate two ministers. After that, the Jackal initially wandered between Libya, South Yemen, Syria and Iraq, trying to create his own terrorist corporation. At the same time, he visited the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, having small bases in Hungary, the GDR and Romania. At the same time, the local special services of the countries monitored him, but did not touch him. A series of unsuccessful assassination attempts, foiled by the Jackal's men, led to the fact that his relations with Libya cooled. And by the mid-80s, the borders for terrorist No. 1 were closed by the GDR, Romania and Czechoslovakia. The jackal settled in Syria, but from there, on the wave of rapprochement with the West, he was soon expelled to Yemen. Although he was greeted with honors there, he was sent back 24 hours later, making it clear that he was not needed. The same thing happened in Jordan. As a result, Sudan became the only State that agreed to accept it. Jackal's career was rapidly coming to an inglorious end.

Carlos was detained by French intelligence services in Sudan in 1994. Before that, Sudanese law enforcement officers, under a far-fetched pretext, took the Jackal out of his house to one of the villas on the outskirts of the city. At night, he was tied up, injected with a tranquilizer and handed over to French agents at the airfield in Khartoum. In 1997, the Jackal was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of French intelligence agents. In 2011, he received a second life sentence for organizing a series of bombings in order to free his mistress Magdalena Kopp. Finally, in 2017, Carlos was sentenced to a third life sentence for throwing a grenade into a crowd. According to all the terms, he is not eligible for early release. Some consider the Jackal a revolutionary, others a criminal and a terrorist. For example, Sanchez had many supporters, especially in his native country. One of them was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (died March 5, 2013), who called the prisoner his friend and said that he corresponded with him. So, in 2009, at that time, the Venezuelan leader said that Sanchez had been convicted unfairly and was in fact a real "revolutionary fighter".