This Day in History--August 14 - Remember the Jackal

On this day in 1994, French intelligence agents captured Venezulean terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, long known as Carlos the Jackal, in Khartoum, Sudan. They did so by sedating and kidnapping him.

Sanchez had been affiliated with various groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Organization for Armed Arab Struggle, and the Japanese Red Army. He was widely believed to be responsible for numerous terrorist attacks between 1973 and 1992.

In 1974, he took the French ambassador and 10 others hostage at the Hague, demanding French authorities release a member of the Japanese Red Army. On June 27, 1975, French police officers tried to arrest Sanchez in Paris, but he escaped after killing two officers in a gun battle.

On December 21, 1975, Sanchez and others took 70 OPEC officials hostage at a Vienna conference. After killing three hostages, they escaped safely with $25 to $50 million in ransom money. Sanchez claimed responsibility for these crimes in an interview with the Arab magazine, Al Watan al Arabi.

He has been sentenced to life in prison.