Jackal - Tapa blanda

From his birth in Venezuela to his capture two years ago in the Sudan, the life of Carlos 'the Jackal' has been an extraordinary one. Raised in a radical family, he was sent to London as a teenager in an attempt by his father to remove him from his early radical activities and friends who were seen as a bad influence. He subsequently studied in Moscow, before going to Beirut in 1969, with the avowed intention of becoming a terrorist. His subsequent career involved murders in Britain, France and Germany, culminating in the kidnapping of 11 OPEC ministers in Vienna in 1975. Carlos' career as a terrorist ranged across the whole range of the terrorist decades of the '70's and '80's and made him the world's most wanted, famous, recognizable, and yet seemingly elusive killer.

John Follain is a correspondent for the Sunday Times. He is the author of numerous critically acclaimed titles. He lives with his wife in Rome.