Carlos the Jackal Could Get Yet Another Life Sentence

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is currently serving two life sentences in Paris; now the man better known as Carlos the Jackal could see that upped to three. In what the AP frames as "a trial that victims' families have been awaiting for decades," the 67-year-old Venezuelan will appear in Paris court on Monday to face first-degree murder charges in connection with a 1974 attack on a shopping center in the French capital. He's accused of tossing a hand grenade from a mezzanine restaurant onto shoppers below, killing two and injuring 34. His lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, calls the undertaking a waste: "What exactly is the point of having a trial so long after the events?" The AP reports the timeline is such a long one because the case was previously dismissed for lack of evidence.

At one time the world's most-wanted fugitive, Ramirez Sanchez spent decades on the run before being arrested in the capital of Sudan in 1994 over murders he committed in France in the name of the Palestinian cause, including 1982 and 1983 train bombings that killed a total of eight. A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the BBC reports Ramirez Sanchez's nickname was given to him by the press, and taken from the pages of Frederick Forsyth's 1971 novel, The Day of the Jackal. Ramirez Sanchez has pleaded not guilty. (More Carlos the Jackal stories.)