Carlos the Jackal, star of international urban guerrillas, introduced himself as a "professional revolutionary" yesterday at the start of his Paris trial on charges of murdering two French secret agents and their informer.
The Venezuelan rebel, blamed for some of the most spectacular guerrilla acts of the 1970s and 1980s, took over jury selection from his lawyer and was reprimanded by the presiding judge for smiling too broadly at the nine jurors.
The trial turned into a legal battle as Carlos made a rambling appeal to have the trial dropped because of what he called his illegal abduction from Sudan to France in 1994. The state prosecutor, Mr Gino Necchi, said the French supreme court had endorsed his arrest.
Carlos waved to the public and some 70 reporters packing the court hall as the presiding judge, Mr Yves Corneloup, suspended the hearing after 3 1/2 hours. The court is to rule on Monday on Carlos's appeal and his request to have SOS Attentats, an association of guerrilla attack victims, banned from attending as a civil plaintiff.
Although now heavy-set and greying at 48, the zealous defender of the Palestinian cause looked casually chic in a beige jacket and white polo shirt. "My name is Illich. My family name is Ramirez Sanchez. I was born on October 12, 1949, in Caracas. My profession is professional revolutionary," he said in French.
Security was tight but discreet around the massive law court complex next to police headquarters in central Paris.
Carlos faces 30 years in prison if convicted of the 1975 killing of the two French agents and their Lebanese informer. He has been in French jails since being captured in Sudan in 1994 and bundled off to Paris.
The 1975 killings occurred only months before his most spectacular coup - the kidnapping that December of 11 oil ministers at a Vienna meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
On her way into court, his lawyer, Ms Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, made vague hints about her client's strategy. "If the court does not respect the law, we will draw our own conclusions," she added enigmatically. When asked what these would be, she said: "You'll see."
The trial was due to last one week. A French court already sentenced Carlos in his absence in 1992 to life imprisonment for the 1975 Paris killings.
About 70 paramilitary gendarme reinforcements were drafted into service for the trial. Law court staff and reporters had to go through metal detectors and identity checks. Unusually, the magistrates and jurors are to be protected round the clock by elite police bodyguards throughout the trial.