If you asked someone to name the world’s most famous terrorist, chances are they would say Osama Bin Laden, the radical Islamist and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. But 50 years ago, before anyone even associated fundamentalist Islam with terrorism, public enemy number one was a radical left-wing militant most famous for his involvement with Palestinian liberation movement: the mysterious Carlos the Jackal.
Born Ilyich Ramírez Sánchez in Venezuela in 1949, the Jackal was the eldest son of millionaire lawyer José Altagracia Ramírez-Navas. Despite having made most of his fortune from the oil boom, Ramírez-Navas was such a convinced Marxist he named his three kids Vladimir, Ilyich and Lenin after the Russian revolutionary leader’s first name, middle name and alias. Eventually, Sánchez took on the name Carlos as his nom de guerre.
Also despite his beliefs, Ramírez-Navas sent his son to a prep school in the capitalist world – London, to be exact. But after realising his kid had been enjoying life a little too much, Sánchez was shipped off to the Patrice Lumumba People’s Friendship University in Moscow, a hotbed of communist ideology.
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Source: The Vice