In a Paris Prison, the Courtship of a Lawyer And Her Terrorist Client Confounds Officials
By JOHN CARREYROU Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
PARIS -- Between drags from a cigarillo and spoonfuls of sorbet, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre says her fiancé is "an exceptionally warm man."
Never mind that he has claimed responsibility for 83 killings and been linked to scores of bombings, kidnappings and other violent crimes. Mrs. Coutant-Peyre is in love. Her beau: Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a k a Carlos the Jackal.
The 52-year-old convicted murderer, who was the human face of terrorism for a time in the 1970s and 1980s, has been in prison here since 1994, when he was captured by French secret-service agents. Mrs. Coutant-Peyre, 48, is his lawyer.
Mr. Ramirez is an avowed communist revolutionary who was reared in Marxist-Leninism by his Venezuelan parents. He trained and fought alongside Palestinian insurgents in the 1970s, and some of his most infamous terrorist acts -- such as the attack against Israeli athletes during the '72 Olympics and the kidnapping for a $20 million ransom of 11 OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in 1975 -- were committed in the name of the Palestinian cause. He cites America's long-standing support of Israel as one of the reasons he hates the U.S.
Engaged in September, Mrs. Coutant-Peyre and Mr. Ramirez plan to marry next year. And that has touched off a storm in French judicial circles. The Paris bar association and Mr. Ramirez's warden both oppose the marriage as a conflict of interest for Mrs. Coutant-Peyre.
But the happy couple isn't to be dissuaded. Their romance flared in August last year when, after three years of flirting, Mr. Ramirez declared his love to her. "Up until that point, I disguised much better than she our irresistible attraction to each other," he boasted in a letter he sent last month to a newspaper in Venezuela. "I will enjoy a warrior's rest by spending the rest of my life with Isabelle, the woman I love rationally and passionately."
Mrs. Coutant-Peyre visits him at least three times a week in the maximum-security wing of La Sante prison, an ominous granite fortress in southern Paris where he is kept in isolation. Their union, she says, is a meeting of the hearts and of the minds, for they share the same Marxist-Leninist beliefs. When she visits, the two smoke Cuban cigars and talk about the revolution.
"Our love for each other is very strong. It's all the more intense because we're kept apart," she confides over lunch, her lipstick matching her fashionably black blouse and a shock of tightly curled black hair. "By advertising it, it's like we're issuing a political manifesto."
She scoffs at the suggestion that she will be marrying a criminal, despite the fact that Mr. Ramirez has one of the longest rap sheets of any living terrorist. "He has no more blood on his hands than the general of any Western army," she says.
A French court convicted Mr. Ramirez in 1997 for the 1975 murders of two French policemen and a Lebanese informant and sentenced him to life in prison. Mrs. Coutant-Peyre argues that the verdict is invalid. Mr. Ramirez's 1994 capture in Sudan was illegal, she says, because he was nabbed on Sudanese soil and taken to France without the niceties of a formal extradition. Although she doesn't hold out much hope for that defense strategy, she is convinced he will be released someday "as part of a hostage-exchange deal."
Mrs. Coutant-Peyre doesn't dispute that Mr. Ramirez has killed, but it doesn't bother her because she believes in the same causes he does -- namely in the communist ideal. "Liberalism," she says, "is like putting a fox in the chicken coop." The only difference between her and Mr. Ramirez, she says, is that she prefers to "fight within the system."
Raised in a bourgeois Parisian family, Mrs. Coutant-Peyre worked in the early '80s with Jacques Verges, one of France's most famous criminal lawyers. That marked the beginning of a 20-year career defending terrorism suspects -- including Islamic militants in recent years. In her resume, Mrs. Coutant-Peyre writes: "I love extreme situations when conflicts are visible." To keep her law practice profitable, Mrs. Coutant-Peyre works for corporate clients on the side.
Mrs. Coutant-Peyre's outspoken defense of Mr. Ramirez hasn't endeared her to France's legal establishment. The Paris bar association's president, Francis Teitgen, is threatening to have her disbarred if she carries out her wedding plans. Mrs. Coutant-Peyre, citing precedents, has countered that there is no law in France barring a lawyer from marrying a client who's in prison.
Her arguments have done little to convince Alain Jego, La Sante's warden, who thinks Mrs. Coutant-Peyre has a choice to make. "In my view, being someone's attorney is not compatible with being his lover," he says. "I don't see how you can ethically defend playing both roles."
In whatever capacity Mrs. Coutant-Peyre visits her man, privacy is limited. Her lawyerly meetings are protected by attorney-client confidentiality, as they would be in the U.S. That means guards can't eavesdrop on their conversations. But they do watch the two through a window to ensure no harm comes to her. As a spouse, she would be allowed regular conjugal visits, which are monitored by sight and sound.
It doesn't help Mrs. Coutant-Peyre's case that Mr. Ramirez has angered French magistrates by condoning the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In a letter sent to a French newspaper, Mr. Ramirez, who converted to Islam in 1975, said he felt "relief" on learning of the attacks. In the letter he sent to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, he said the victims of the attacks were "nearly all enemy soldiers" and "Sheik Osama's struggle to liberate the three occupied holy cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem is also mine." The Paris prosecutor's office has launched an inquiry into whether the remarks constitute a "justification of terrorism," which is a crime in France.
Mrs. Coutant-Peyre says the effort to thwart her marriage to Mr. Ramirez is part of a harassment campaign led by the French interior ministry. "It bothers them that Mr. Ramirez has a lawyer he can trust," she says. Alain Tourre, a spokesman for the interior ministry, chuckles when told of Mrs. Coutant-Peyre's comments. "She should press charges if she really thinks she's being harassed," he says.
Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's top counterterrorism magistrate, who built the case that put Mr. Ramirez behind bars, says Mr. Ramirez is manipulating Mrs. Coutant-Peyre, just as he manipulated other women who have fallen under his spell. "He seduced a number of young women in the '70s and '80s and always ended up using them for operational ends," Mr. Bruguiere says.
Until now, Mr. Ramirez's most famous relationship was with his current wife, Magdalena Kopp, a former member of the Red Army Faction, a defunct German terrorist group. When she was arrested carrying explosives in France in 1982, Mr. Ramirez organized a string of deadly bombings to pressure the French government to release her. After she was set free in 1985, the couple had a daughter and eventually married.
Mrs. Coutant-Peyre says she is well aware of Mr. Ramirez's many relationships. She chalks them up to his "Latin culture" and takes solace in the fact that he has told her that of his "four great loves," she is his favorite.
Before they can get married, Mrs. Coutant-Peyre and Mr. Ramirez both must get divorces. Mr. Ramirez is still married to Ms. Kopp, who has repudiated her terrorist past and cooperated with German authorities. Mrs. Coutant-Peyre is married to a civil servant and has three children.
Mr. Ramirez and Ms. Kopp are no longer on good terms. In a 1997 interview with a German magazine, she called him "a megalomaniac madman" who "killed without blinking." Ms. Kopp couldn't be reached for comment for this article.
Yet, if it weren't for her, Mr. Ramirez and Mrs. Coutant-Peyre wouldn't have met. Ms. Kopp introduced them. Mrs. Coutant-Peyre used to be her lawyer, too.