Carlos the Jackal to face trial over 1974 Paris terror attack

Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez accused of throwing hand grenade into restaurant in French capital's Latin Quarter

'Carlos the Jackal' raises his fist as he appears in court in Paris in November 2000 (Thierry Chiarello/Reuters)

The political extremist known as Carlos the Jackal is due to appear at a French court for a deadly 1974 attack at a Paris shopping arcade, a trial that victims' families have been awaiting for decades.

Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is accused of throwing a hand grenade from a mezzanine restaurant onto a shopping area in the French capital's Latin Quarter.

Two people were killed and 34 injured at the trendy Drugstore Publicis.

Known worldwide as Carlos, the 67-year-old is already serving a life sentence in France for a series of murders and attacks he has been convicted of perpetrating or organising in the country on behalf of the Palestinian cause in the 1970s and 1980s.

If convicted of first-degree murders in the trial beginning on Monday, he could get a third life sentence.

It is probably the last case concerning his past to come to trial.

At the time of the attack, Ramirez Sanchez was 24 years old and had already joined the organisation Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, but had not yet achieved worldwide notoriety.

Carlos has pleaded innocent and denied involvement in the case.

The case took so long to go to trial because it was first dismissed for lack of evidence before being reopened when Carlos was arrested and imprisoned in France.

AP