'Carlos the Jackal' gets life term for 1974 Paris attack

A French court on Tuesday handed "Carlos the Jackal", once one of the worlds most wanted criminals, life imprisonment for a 1974 grenade attack on a Paris shop that killed two people.

The Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is already serving two life sentences in France for murders and attacks in the 1970s and 1980s, the Guardian reported.

As the trial wrapped up on Tuesday, the 67-year-old known worldwide as "Carlos" denounced "an absurd trial" for a 42-year-old crime.

Carlos had denied involvement in the attack on the Publicis drugstore in the upmarket Boulevard St-Germain on September 15, 1974, saying there was no proof against him.

Five judges found Carlos, the only defendant, guilty of the attack in which 32 people were injured besides two killed.

Carlos described lawyers as "scavengers" and ranted about wealthy "Zionist interests" who opposed those who challenged Israeli aggression.

He also described himself as a "professional revolutionary" since he was a teenager.

He was also convicted in 1997 of murdering two French police officers and an informant in 1975 in Paris, and in 2011 of masterminding attacks on two trains, a train station and a Paris street that killed 11 persons and left wounded about 150 others.

--IANS

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