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The Arrest

On 4th May 1985, Magdalena Kopp was released from French prison, having earned early release for good behaviour. She joined Carlos in Hungary, but political pressure soon saw them forced to seek refuge in Syria, one of the few countries willing to offer Carlos a base. On 17th August, Kopp gave birth to their first child, named Elba Rosa. In return for sanctuary, Syria insisted that Carlos remain inactive and, with few other options, he was forced into retirement, where he remained in relative obscurity, until Western intelligence agencies received information that Carlos was about to head Saddam Hussein’s terror campaign in his attack on Kuwait, in August 1990.There followed an all-out campaign to capture him, which saw Carlos and his family expelled from Syria, and he was forced to settle in Jordan by October 1991. He then left Kopp for a young Jordanian woman, whom he took as his second wife. Kopp left Jordan for Venezuela with their daughter, moving in with Carlos’ mother. Carlos was forced again to leave Jordan, settling finally in Khartoum, in the Sudan.His drinking and womanising did not endear him to the Muslim authorities there and, amidst intense political pressure from the French government, the Sudanese authorities gave him up for extradition on 14th August 1994. He was immediately flown to France, and charged with the 1975 murders of the two policemen, as well as Michel Moukharbal. He was held in the maximum-security prison, La Sante, pending trial.