Carlos The Jackal
- "I want to get out of this place."
— Carlos The Jackal
Il’ych Ramirez Sanchez is a character that appears in the Rainbow Six novel. At one point he was one of the most-wanted international fugitives and was dubbed "Carlos The Jackal by newspapers.
Biography
Ilyich Sanchez was born on October 12, 1949 in Michelena, Tachira, Venezuela. He is the son of Marxist Lawyer José Altagracia Ramírez Navas and Elba María Sánchez and has two younger siblings named Lenin and Vladimir. Ilyich attended a high school in Liceo Fermin Toro of Caracas and joined the youth movement of the Venezuelan Communist Party in 1959. After attending the Third Tricontinental Conference in January 1966 with his father, Ilyich spent the summer at Camp Matanzas, a guerrilla warfare school run by the Cuban DGI near Havana. His parents divorced later that year
In 1968, Ilyich and his brother were enrolled at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. Ilyich was later expelled in 1970. Afterwards, Ilyich traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, where he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in July 1970. His recruiting officer, Bassam Abu Sharif, gave him the codename "Carlos" because of his South American roots. After completing his training, Carlos gained a reputation as a fighter within in the PFLP during the Black September conflict of 1970.
In 1973, Carlos performed a failed assassination attempt on the Vice President of the British Zionist Federation, Joseph Sieff. This was done in retaliation for Mossad's assassination of the PFLP leader, Mohamed Boudia. Carlos participated in several terrorist attacks over the next several years. This included a failed bomb attack on the Bank Hapoalim in London, car bombings at French newspapers, the Hague French Embassy attack in 1974. On June 26th, 1975, Carlos's PFLP contact, Michel Moukharbal, was captured and interrogated by the French DST where he subsequently revealed Carlos' identity. When two DST agents confronted Carlos, he shot and killed them along with Moukharbal. He fled the scene and managed to escape.
Carlos later participated in the planning for the attack on the OPEC headquarters in Vienna. On December 21st, 1975, He led six men through the facility and took sixty people hostage, killing three. Carlos demanded that the Austrian authorities read a communiqué about the Palestinian cause on Austrian radio and television networks every two hours. For the hostage's safety, the Austrian government complied with his demand. A day later, the government provided them and their hostages transport to Algiers and Tripoli. Carlos and his associates were then granted asylum for the release of the hostages. Their safe release also resulted in Carlos being payed a small fortune by Saudi Arabia on the behalf of Iran. Despite this, he was expelled from the PFLP for his failure to not execute hostages when the PFLP's demands were not met.
Carlos founded his own radical group in 1976, the Organization of Armed Struggle. He also made connections with East Germany's Secret Police who provided him with an office, safe houses in East Berlin, a support staff, service car, and permission to carry a pistol in public. This also resulted in his affiliation with the Russian KGB. During the early 1980s, Carlos performed attacks on several European targets. On February 16th, 1982, Carlo's wife, Magdalena Kopp, was arrested and detained while in Paris. Carlos unsuccessfully lobbied for her release. Over the next two years, he orchestrated a series of terrorist attacks in France in retaliation.
With conditional support from the Iraqi regime and after the death of Haddad, Carlos offered the services of his group to the PFLP and other groups. Attack's performed by his group led to international pressure on East European states that harbored Carlos. He lived in Budapest for over two years before he was expelled in late 1985. He was refused sanctuary in Iraq, Libya and Cuba before he found limited support in Syria. He settled in Damascus with Kopp and their daughter, Elba Rosa. The Syrian government forced Carlos to remain inactive. In 1990, the Iraqi government approached him for work and, in September 1991, he was expelled from Syria, which had supported the American intervention against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. After a short stay in Jordan, he was accorded protection in Sudan.
France and the United States offered a number of deals to the Sudanese authorities which Sudan later accepted. In 1994, Carlos had some minor cosmetic surgery done by a trusted physician. Two days later, the Sudan Government told him that he needed to be moved to a villa for protection from an assassination attempt and would be given personal bodyguards. The next day, the bodyguards tranquilized Carlos while he slept and transferred him to French DST agents. Carlos later awoke aboard a plane bound to Paris for his trial. He was charged for the 1975 murders of the two French counterintelligence officers and Moukharbal and was sent to La Santé Prison to await trial. Carlos was found guilty on December 23rd, 1997, and was sentenced to life without the possible parole. He was placed in a small, single window cell where he was watched at all times of the day through cameras and was not allowed contact with other prisoners.
Rainbow Six
In 1999, Sanchez grew tired of prison life and held a private conference with his attorney. Understanding that conversations between clients and attorneys were privileged, Sanchez told his attorney of how he wanted out of prison. He then requested that his attorney send one of his acquaintances a message, stating that it was his wish to be released and that the rewards would be great.
On April 2nd, René and nine other former members of Action Directe infiltrated World Park in Spain and took the children of Thompson CSF employees hostage. It was their hope that as the children were French citizens, this would force the French Government to release Sanchez and several other members of Action Directe. To show their resolve, Andre executed a terminally ill girl named Anna Groot. Unfortunately, the French Minister refused to give in to these demands, no matter the cost. Despite this, Rainbow Director, John Clark had Paul Bellow inform the terrorists that Sanchez and the other former Action Directe members would soon be released and taken to the park to be transported to the airport along with René and his associates. This gave Rainbow more time to plan their assault and prevented the deaths of more hostages. Not long after, Rainbow executed the rescue operation and succeeded in eliminating all ten terrorists, ending Sanchez's only hope of being released from prison.
Trivia
- He is a fictionalized version of the real Carlos The Jackal. He shares the same history as his real life counterpart up until the Rainbow Six novel.