Human rights court dismisses Carlos the Jackal appeal

The European Court of Human Rights today ruled that eight years of solitary confinement for Carlos the Jackal did not violate the jailed terrorist’s rights or amount to inhumane treatment.

The court’s Grand Chamber upheld a January 2005 ruling of a lower chamber that said the 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 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 1975 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informer.

He was tracked down in Sudan in 1994 and hauled to Paris in a sack by French secret service agents.

He said he was detained in a small, dilapidated cell and was authorised to leave it only for a two-hour daily walk.

But the human rights 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 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 court said in its judgment.

“The court found that the physical conditions in which the applicant had been detained were proper and complied with the European prison rules,” the court said, 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.