Convicted terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, also known as “Carlos the Jackal,” on June 26 lost an appeal of his conviction for taking part in four bombings in France in 1982 and 1983, including two that took place in Marseilles on New Year’s Eve in 1983. A total of 11 people were killed in the bombings, and approximately 140 were injured. In denying his appeal, the anti-terrorism court upheld Ramírez’s life sentence. Ramírez has called himself a “professional revolutionary” and has claimed to have been involved in dozens of attacks which have killed and injured hundreds of people. Despite these claims, Ramírez has continued to deny any involvement in the four bombings. Ramírez’s lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre stated that her client would appeal again.
Ramírez is also currently serving a second life sentence in France for the murder of two French policemen and a Lebanese informer in 1975. Ramírez was convicted in absentia for those murders in 1992. He was captured by the French secret service in 1994, retried for those crimes and began serving a life sentence after he was again convicted in 1997. In July 2006 the appeals chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg rejected an appeal from Ramírez claiming that the eight years he spent in solitary confinement in a French prison was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (PDF). The appeals chamber ruled that Ramírez’ solitary confinement was not inhumane and did not otherwise violate his human rights.
