France seeks new life sentence for Carlos the Jackal

Paris: Carlos the Jackal, already serving two life sentences for murder, should be given a third life term for a deadly 1974 bombing in Paris, a French prosecutor said Monday.

The Venezuelan self-styled revolutionary, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, denies the grenade attack on the Drugstore Publicis store that claimed two lives and injured 34 on September 15, 1974.

Prosecutor Remi Crosson du Cormier said Monday that "all evidence gathered in this investigation points to him."

During the two-week trial, in which a verdict is expected Tuesday, 67-year-old Carlos argued that he should not be required to testify against himself.

He also said that as an "officer of the Palestinian resistance" -- on whose behalf he staged a spectacular hostage-taking at OPEC in Vienna in 1975 -- he faced death if he divulged operational information.

Pressed by presiding judge Francois Sottet, the defendant said at one point: "Maybe it`s me, but there`s no proof of it." 

The world`s most wanted fugitive in the 1970s and early 1980s has been in prison in France since his arrest in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 1994 by French elite police.

He is already serving a life sentence for the murders of two policemen in Paris in 1975 as well as that of a former comrade who betrayed him.