Isabelle Coutant-Peyre

Who is Isabelle Coutant-Peyre?

Isabelle Coutant-Peyre is a French lawyer married to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the international terrorist better known as "Carlos" or "Carlos the Jackal".

She represented Zacarias Moussaoui early on during his imprisonment, while he was awaiting trial for his role in the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

She was married to a civil servant and has three sons, Florent, Gabriel, and Aurelien.

She became a lawyer and worked with Jacques Vergès, defender of Djamila Bouhired, and she supports her defence of "revolutionary fighters" with income from her activities as a business lawyer.

In her political cases, she employs "rupture" techniques, treating the trials as lynchings. She was briefly jailed for likening French police to the Gestapo.

Her fiancé Carlos is currently held in Clairvaux Prison, where he is part of the general inmate population, and their attempts to marry have been frustrated by legal issues. Conjugal visits can only be made after a civil marriage occurs; a Muslim ceremony performed in 2001 had no legal force. She believes Carlos is innocent of all his alleged crimes in Paris.