Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is a Venezuelan-born leftist revolutionary and terrorist. After several bungled bombings, Ramirez Sanchez achieved notoriety for a 1975 raid on the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, resulting in the deaths of three people. For many years, he was among the most wanted international fugitives. He is now serving a life sentence in Clairvaux Prison in northeast France.
Ramirez Sanchez was the given the nom de guerre Carlo when he became a member of the leftist Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Carlos was given the “Jackal” moniker by the press when the Frederick Forsyth novel The Day of the Jackal was reportedly found among his belongings. In 1973, Carlos was associated with the PFLP and he tried and failed to assassinate Jewish businessman and vice-president of the British Zionist Federation, Joseph Sieff. Carlos also admitted responsibility for a failed bomb attack on the Bank Hapoalim in London and car bomb attacks on three French newspapers accused of pro-Israeli leanings.
Carlos participated in the planning for the attack on the headquarters of OPEC in Vienna. In December 1975, he led the six-person team that assaulted the meeting of the OPEC leaders and took over 60 hostages. He was subsequently expelled from the PFLP and formed his own group. Three days after minor surgery in the Sudan, his own bodyguards tranquilized and tied him up, and then handed him over to French agents on August 14, 1994.
