Caging the Jackal not inhumane, says human rights court

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez raises his fist during a court appearance in
Paris in 2000.

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez raises his fist during a court appearance in Paris in 2000.
Photo: Reuters

Jan Sliva in Strasbourg
July 6, 2006

THE European Court of Human Rights has ruled that eight years of solitary confinement for Carlos the Jackal does not violate the jailed terrorist's rights or amount to inhumane treatment.

The court's Grand Chamber on Tuesday upheld a lower chamber ruling in January last year which found that lengthy solitary confinement did not breach the European Convention on Human Rights. But the court awarded the Venezuelan, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, €10,000 ($17,200) in damages because he was not allowed to contest his long solitary confinement in a French administrative court.

Ramirez was held in solitary confinement from his detention in 1994 until 2002 on grounds of his being dangerous, the need to maintain order in the prison and the risk of his escaping.

Ramirez, who gained international notoriety as the Cold War-era mastermind of deadly bombings, assassinations and hostage dramas, is serving a life sentence for the murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informer in 1975. He was tracked down in Sudan in 1994 and hauled to Paris in a sack by French secret service agents.

The human rights court ruled that Ramirez, viewed as one of the world's most dangerous terrorists in the 1970s, was rightly imprisoned under extraordinary security measures. Ramirez sued the French Government for being detained in what he said was a small, dilapidated cell and was authorised to leave it only for a two-hour daily walk. But the court dismissed his complaint, ruling that the cell was sufficient for one prisoner and that he was not held in complete isolation.

"The cell … contained a bed, a table, and washing and toilet facilities; it also had a window which provided natural light," the court said in its judgement.

"The applicant had books, newspapers and a television, and access to the exercise yard for two hours a day and to a cardiac-training room for one hour a day."

The judgement added that the conditions were proper and "complied with the European prison rules", noting that Ramirez had received twice-weekly visits from a doctor, a monthly visit from a priest and very frequent visits from one or more of his 58 lawyers.

Ramirez has been held in a series of locations since his capture, and has been in Clairvaux prison, France's most secure jail, since January.

Associated Press
