This week (August 11-17) in crime history – First federal
prisoners arrive at Alcatraz (August 11, 1934); Sunset Slayer accomplice Carol
Bundy confessed (August 11, 1980); Jonesboro School Massacre shooters were
found guilty (August 11, 1998); Charlie Wilson, part of the gang that pulled
off the 1963 Great Train Robbery in England escaped prison (August 12, 1964);
Yosemite Slayer, Cary Stayner was born (August 13, 1961); Terrorist Carlos the
Jackal was captured (August 14, 1994); Mary Winkler, who confessed to shooting
her pastor husband was released on bail (August 15, 2006); John DeLorean was
cleared of drug trafficking charges (August 16, 1984); Serial burglar and
rapist, “The Fox” struck in Brampton, England (August 17, 1984); Old West
outlaw Billy the Kid shoots and kills first victim (August 17, 1877)
Highlighted Crime of the Week -
On August 14, 1994, terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, known
as Carlos the Jackal was captured in Khartoum, Sudan, by French intelligence
agents. Since there was no extradition treaty with Sudan, the French agents
sedated and kidnapped Carlos. The Sudanese government, claiming that it had
assisted in the arrest, requested that the United States remove their country
from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism. Sanchez, who was affiliated
with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Organization for
Armed Arab Struggle, and the Japanese Red Army, 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 that
French authorities release Yutaka Furuya of the Japanese Red Army. On June 27,
1975, French police officers tried to arrest Sanchez in a Paris apartment, but
he killed two officers in an ensuing gun battle and escaped. In June 1992,
Sanchez was tried in absentia for these murders and convicted. On December 21,
1975, Sanchez and a group of his men took 70 OPEC officials hostage at a Vienna
conference. They made it to safety with somewhere between $25 million and $50
million in ransom money, but not before killing three hostages. Sanchez claimed
responsibility for these crimes in an interview with the Arab magazine, Al
Watan al Arabi. In the subsequent trial that resulted in his imprisonment,
Sanchez was represented by Jacque Verges, who had reportedly helped to organize
a failed rocket attack on a French nuclear power plant in 1982. Verges was also
accused of sending a threatening letter from Sanchez to the French authorities
so that Sanchez's girlfriend (possibly his wife), German terrorist Magdalena
Kopp, could be released. He bitterly denied the charges.
Michael
Thomas Barry is the author of numerous books that include the award
winning, Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California,
1849-1949 (2012, Schiffer Publishing). The book was the WINNER of the
2012 International Book Awards and a FINALIST in the 2012 Indie Excellence Book
Awards for True Crime. Visit the author's website for more
information: www.michaelthomasbarry.com.
The book can
be purchased from Amazon through the following link:
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