... is the nom de guerre of the Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. His real name was accepted as an alternative answer.
Born in 1949 and aged 67 in November 2016, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez is commonly described as one of the most notorious political terrorists of his era. When he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1970, recruiting officer Bassam Abu Sharif gave him the code name "Carlos" because of his South American roots. After several bungled bombings, Ramírez Sánchez achieved notoriety for the 1975 raid on the Vienna headquarters of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which killed three people. This was followed by a string of attacks against Western targets. For many years he was among the most wanted international fugitives. Carlos was dubbed "The Jackal" by The Guardian after one of its correspondents reportedly spotted Frederick Forsyth's 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal near some of the fugitive's belongings.
Ramírez Sánchez is currently serving a life sentence in France for the murder of a French government informant and two French counter–intelligence agents in 1975. He denied the killings, claiming that they were orchestrated by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, and condemned Israel as a terrorist state. During his trial in France in 1997, he said, "When one wages war for 30 years, there is a lot of blood spilled – mine and others. But we never killed anyone for money, but for a cause – the liberation of Palestine."
© Macclesfield Quiz League 2016