Carlos the Jackal: Led gang of killers

An Austrian policemen died as he tried to intervene. An Iraqi bodyguard and a delegate from Libya were also gunned down by the gang.

For 21 hours, the siege continued, as the world's media relayed events to a shocked public. Finally, Saudi Arabia agreed to pay a ransom of $50m.

The gang fled to the airport, with 15 of their original hostages in tow, and forced them aboard a waiting plane provided by the authorities as part of the ransom deal.

Wounded

The Austrian plane flew the gang and their captives to Algiers, where the ordeal for the hostages finally ended on 23 December.

Klein himself had been shot in the stomach, but managed to reach the getaway plane.

The attack had been carried out in the name of Palestinian rights, but Klein testified at his trial that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had been behind it, and that the Libyans had even been able to provide details of security within the conference venue.

Klein insists he had no direct part in the killings, but he was found guilty of the three murders, and of attempted murder and kidnapping.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer acted as character witness for Klein

The judge, however, accepted that his was a minor role and that he had since renounced his violent past.

It was 1998 before he was captured in France, where he had lived in a Normandy village for five years posing as a journalist named Dirk Claussen. Police moved in as he ate in a bistro in the village.

Carlos himself - real name Ilich Ramirez Sanchez - was captured in Sudan in 1994 and, after a headline-grabbing trial, was jailed in France for killing two intelligence agents.

For Klein's trial, Carlos was brought from his cell to testify against the man he now regarded as a traitor to the cause, for his public renunciation of violence.

'James Bond'

Carlos named Klein as the killer of the Iraqi bodyguard, claiming he had shot him between the eyes as he moved in to arrest the gang's only female member, known as Nada.

But the German judge accepted Klein's story that he had not been responsible.

Klein had, said the judge, obviously been fascinated with Carlos, whom he described as a "James Bond-type with mafia elegance".