http://www.theage.com.au/world/carlos-the-jackal-bares-teeth-over-planned-tv-drama-20100204-ng2d.html


Carlos the Jackal bares teeth over planned TV drama 
LIZZY DAVIES, PARIS 
February 5, 2010 
ILICH Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, is not known for 
shunning the spotlight. For years he was the world's most wanted terrorist and 
once claimed, in front of the television cameras, to have killed more than 1500 
people in the pursuit of Palestinian liberation.

But the Venezuelan revolutionary, serving life imprisonment for the murder of 
two French intelligence officials and their informant in 1975, has decided not 
all publicity is good publicity. With the help of his wife, a French lawyer 
whom he married in prison, Ramirez Sanchez is suing a Parisian production 
company over a three-part TV drama he claims could violate his ''biographical 
image''.

Isabelle Coutant-Peyre has demanded the producers hand over the master copy of 
the footage for her to check for errors and potentially make changes before it 
is broadcast on French television. She told a court in Nanterre last month that 
the drama, which has not yet been finished, would make her husband out to be 
the instigator of crimes of which he had not been found guilty.

Lawyers for Film en Stock, meanwhile, insisted handing over the film would 
signify a violation of its creative rights. ''How could we tarnish the image of 
Carlos when he himself has claimed to be behind almost 2000 deaths?'' the 
company's lawyer, Richard Malka, asked.

Daniel Leconte, the firm's owner and the producer of the three-part drama, said 
he had never allowed any of his subjects access to his material before it was 
aired.

''For us, this would be catastrophic,'' he said. ''It would mean that every 
time we make a film we are giving our subjects the right to direct their own 
lives.''

He said the film would be presented clearly as a fictional interpretation of a 
real man's life and could not be taken as an attempt at a factual biography.

Ramirez Sanchez was wanted in at least five European countries at the peak of 
his notoriety. He was eventually captured in Sudan in 1994, and has been in 
prison ever since, having been sentenced in absentia to life in jail. The 
60-year-old is awaiting a new trial before an anti-terrorism tribunal for other 
attacks in the early 1980s.

GUARDIAN

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