Carlos the Jackal to face trial in France

Paris: Carlos the Jackal, one of the most notorious armed militants of the 1970s and 80s, will be tried in France for four attacks that killed 11 people and injured almost 200 others in the 1980s, a justice official said yesterday.

Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere granted prosecutors' request that Carlos, a Venezuelan whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, be tried for the attacks. A trial is expected at the end of 2007 or beginning of 2008.

Prosecutors say Carlos, now serving a life sentence for the murders of two French secret service agents, launched the bomb attacks in a bid to win the release of his companion, Magdalena Kopp, a German "revolutionary" held in France at the time.

He is charged with the March 29, 1982, bombing of a Paris-Toulouse train; the April 22, 1982, attack outside the Paris offices of newspaper Al Watan; and the December 31, 1983, attacks on a TGV high-speed train and a Marseille station.

Carlos was once one of the most wanted men in the world, having shot to notoriety with the 1975 assault on an Opec meeting in Vienna during which he and 5 others took 70 people hostage, including 11 oil ministers.