The Jackal Barks
Imagine, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, "Carlos the Jackal", is still around. Still festering in prison, that is. It seems aeons ago that he was captured and put away. And here he is, once again facing trial. That there are lawyers who will defend this jackal, and claim non-involvement in the crimes he has committed and helped to commit, speaks volumes about justice and those who practise law.But then, the idea behind that is twofold of course; the first being that justice is blind and everyone is entitled to their day in court to be proven innocent or guilty. The second being that the practise of law is like a game of one-upsmanship with clever lawyers seeking minuscule cracks in procedure or precedence to aid them in skirting justice. In the process being handsomely remunerated.
For lawyers, gaining a reputation as a formidable opponent in a court of law, is a bonus worth its weight in platinum. That reputation can be cashed in generously on all future such engagements as other guilty and humanly-disgusting clients whose exploits in committing atrocities put them outside the pale of the social convention, can be defended by these legal whizzes.
For decades, his reputation ensured he was viewed as a global "most wanted". He is due now to stand trial in Paris over terrorist bombings in the 1980s that killed eleven, and maimed over one hundred people. He was, he said, a Cold War revolutionary, and a stalwart with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Venezuelan by birth, his victims were "collateral damage" in a social-ideological war.
His commissions of violence took in venues in London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna. All of which glorious episodes in the life of a venal, Marxist killer, he denies, while grinning widely. He does appreciate his wide notoriety. One of his stable of lawyers committed to his cause, is his third wife, who married him while he was imprisoned in Paris, in 2001.
While his lawyers concern themselves with negating the usefulness of state evidence, his concerns are more mundane, relating to his reputation and his comfort. For some dreadful scoundrel made off with his nail clippers. And Hugo Chavez has unaccountably halted sending him Havana cigars. Likely this is why he threatens hunger strikes.
Should he wish to starve himself to death, why risk upsetting his well-laid plans?
Labels: Crime, Justice, Social-Cultural Deviations, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Monday, November 07, 2011
<< Home