Chavez praises Carlos the Jackal

Indonesia News.Net
Saturday 21st November, 2009

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has told a group of socialist politicians he believes Carlos the Jackal and several other world leaders should never have been considered bad.

He labelled Carlos, who is serving a life sentence in France for murders committed in 1975, a Venezuelan revolutionary fighter rather then a terrorist.

Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, gained notoriety in the 1970s when he carried out deadly bombings, assassinations and kidnappings.

He was captured in Sudan in 1994 and handed over to France, where he is now in jail for killing two French intelligence officers and an alleged informer in 1975.

Mr Chavez said he believed Carlos had been unfairly convicted, and called him "a great fighter for the Palestine Liberation Organisation."

In his speech in Caracas, Mr Chavez also hailed Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin as great nationalists.

About former Ugandan President Idi Amin, Mr Chavez said: "We thought he was a cannibal. I don't know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot."

About 300,000 people were killed during Amin's eight-year rule.

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