Magdalena Kopp

Magdalena Kopp fue esposa de Ilich Ramírez Sánchez y como él compartió la lucha armada. Participó de la toma de rehenes de la OPEC y del secuestro de un avión israelí, luego llevado a Entebbe. En vocabulario: overpowered, bolted. Para saber: Hans-Joachim Klein

Magdalena estuvo involucrada en el ataque a la conferencia de la OPEC, en 1975, y el secuestro y desvío del avión de Air France a Entebbe, en 1976. En 1982 fue arrestada en París por posesión de explosivos. Cuando un policía notó que el Peugeot donde estaba había sido mal estacionado se acercó al auto y pidió los papeles. El compañero de Magdalena, el también terrorista Bruno Bréguet, trató de disparar pero su arma se trabó. Magdalena saltó del auto y trató de escapar pero fue detenida…

Magdalena Cäcilia Kopp (2 April 1948 – 15 June 2015) was a photographer and member of the Frankfurt Revolutionary Cells (RZ). She was known for being the wife and accomplice of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez.

She worked for the publication Red Star and was one of the founders of the Frankfurt Revolutionary Cells (RZ). Members of this group, in addition to her new friend Johannes Weinrich, were Hans-Joachim Klein, Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann. They were involved in the attack on the OPEC conference in 1975 and in the hijacking of an Air France plane to Entebbe in 1976.

Rescued Air France passengers, Ben Gurion airport, 1976

On 16 February 1982, she was arrested in Paris together with Bruno Bréguet, a Swiss citizen who had served a prison sentence in Israel for possession of explosives. When a policeman noticed their Peugeot car was improperly parked and asked to see their papers, Bréguet attempted to shoot him, but had forgotten to release his pistol's safety catch and was overpowered. Kopp, who had bolted, was cornered a block away from the scene and surrendered. Five kilos of Penthrit (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) were found in the car, as well as false passports and other incriminating documents, including sketch plans of various locations. Under interrogation, it was established that they were planning to blow up the offices of the exiled Arabic political magazine Al Watan Al Arabi because it had annoyed Syria's President Hafez el-Assad, who had granted Kopp, Carlos and other terrorists asylum in Damascus.

On May 24, 1982, Kopp was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Boudia Command carried out several terrorist attacks to pressure the government for the release of Kopp and Breguet. Kopp was released on May 4, 1985 with a reduction of seven months of her sentence for good behavior but was deported to Germany where she was detained and questioned again, this time by German police. Subsequently she was set free and in less than a month she moved to Damascus, Syria where she met and reunited with Ilyich Ramirez (Carlos). In 1985 they were married.

On August 17, 1986 she gave birth to their daughter Elba Rosa Ramirez Kopp. She and Carlos lived quietly until 1990 when Syria, as an ally of United States in the Gulf War, asked them to leave the country. They went to Libya, but it rejected their residency visa and they had to return to Syria, where they remained for a short time. Kopp and Carlos then decided to separate and she went to Venezuela with his mother while Carlos traveled to Sudan with a diplomatic passport.

Para saber

Hans-Joachim Klein (born 1947) is a former member of the German left-wing militant group Revolutionary Cells (RZ).

Klein came from a working-class background. His mother was imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp for Rassenschande ("racial pollution") during World War II. She killed herself a few months after Klein was born and he spent some time in a foster home after her death. Klein was physically abused by his father, who took custody of him again after he remarried. For most of his life Klein believed incorrectly that his father had been an SS member and his mother had been Jewish.

He served as Jean-Paul Sartre's chauffeur when Sartre visited the imprisoned Andreas Baader in December 1974.

Klein has described Holger Meins' death on hunger strike as inspiring his turn to violence; he carried a photo of Meins' emaciated body in his wallet. He took part in the 1975 attack organized by Carlos the Jackal on an OPEC conference in Vienna, in which three people were killed and Klein himself shot in the stomach.

Vocabulario

Overpower: overcome by superior force. Subdue.

She was able to overpower her attacker.

Bolt: to move suddenly and rapidly.

She bolted from the room.

Titulares

“Si Carlos sale de la cárcel, no me extrañaría que viniera a matarme.” Magdalena Kopp  (El País, España.)

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