VIDEO. 50 years ago, Carlos and the deadly attack on the Publicis pharmacy in Paris

That's where he got the name Carlos. In December of the same year, he took part in his first operation, attempting to assassinate a Jewish businessman in London. At the same time, still in the English capital, he was responsible for a bomb attack against the Hapaolim Bank.

September 15, 1974, the attack on the Drogheria Publicis in Saint-Germain

These events are of paramount importance in fueling the attack from Drogheria Publicis. Indeed, hunted by the English authorities, he had to hide in France. In 1974 and 1975, Carlos appears to have chosen Paris as the preferred theater for his terrorist actions. That year, he claimed a series of attacks in the French capital: car bomb explosions in front of the L'Aurore, Minute and L'Arche newsrooms, two bazooka attacks at Orly airport, the assassination of two DST inspectors (Direction of Territorial Surveillance) and a grenade attack on the Drogheria Publicis in Saint-Germain on September 14, 1974.

“Screams of terror rang out as men and women got out and fell bleeding on the pavement.

That day, around 5:10 p.m., a grenade thrown by a man from the mezzanine restaurant exploded in the shopping arcade below, at the corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue de Rennes, one of the busiest roads in Paris . “The violence of the explosion,” wrote the “Sud Ouest” of the following September 16, “was such that it destroyed all the shops on the ground floor of this ultra-modern commercial complex, adjoining the Lipp and Les Deux-Magots brasseries. It is due to a defense grenade that was thrown into the tobacconist of the pharmacy. A split second after the explosion, there were screams of horror as men and women came out and fell bleeding on the pavement. “

Taking advantage of the confusion, the author of the attack, which left two dead and thirty-four injured, including four children, a young European man, according to witnesses, managed to leave the pharmacy and get lost in the crowd.

According to the investigation, the grenade used came from the same batch stolen by the Baader gang on June 26, 1972 from a US base in Germany as those found with one of Carlos's mistresses and abandoned after the hostage-taking of La Haye. which took place at the same time as the Publicis attack: eleven hostages were seized in the French embassy by a Japanese commando.

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Life sentence

In 1994, under the orders of Charles Pasqua, then Minister of the Interior, Carlos was kidnapped in Sudan and repatriated to France.

In 1997 he presented himself for a single case, the double assassination of the two DST inspectors, the others still being investigated. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. In 2011, he was sentenced to the same sentence for the series of deadly bomb attacks in 1982 and 1983 (11 dead and 191 injured).

In March 2017, Carlos was sentenced, for the third time, to life imprisonment for the attack on the Publicis Pharmacy in 1974. A colorful trial since Carlos, an eccentric character, had pleaded not guilty before supporting the deaths of 1,500 persons, “including 80 at my hands,” he shouted to the assembly.

According to the indictment, the Publicis attack was aimed at facilitating the release of a Japanese arrested in Orly, a member of the Japanese Red Army (JRA) whose release had just been demanded by a commando during the hostage-taking at the French embassy in The Hague. This movement was close to an offshoot of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) from which Carlos had become one of the armed forces in Europe. Without DNA or a confession, Carlos was found guilty based on a wealth of incriminating evidence, including the testimony of a repentant former comrade-in-arms, Hans Joachim Klein.

In 2018, Carlos is re-sentenced on appeal to life imprisonment for the deadly attack on the Publicis Pharmacy, then a third time in 2022, 47 years after the attack. This new trial, ordered in November 2019 by the Court of Cassation, must last three days and refers only to the amount of the punishment, since the guilt of the Venezuelan in the attack that left two dead and 34 injured in 1974 had been definitively recognized by the justice system.