Terrorist Carlos the Jackal has third life sentence for deadly 1974 Paris attack confirmed by French court

A Venezuelan militant who carried out terror attacks around the world in the 1970s and 80s has had his appeal to reduce one of his three life sentences rejected.

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos the Jackal, was given a third life sentence after being found guilty in 2017 over a grenade attack in 1974 that killed two people and injured 36.

He has been in prison since 1994 after being captured in Sudan by French Special Forces.

He appeared in court in Paris on Wednesday in a bid to reduce his jail term.

However, his third life sentence was confirmed on Thursday, the Paris Prosecutor's Office said.

He had already lost appeals against his two other life terms - one for the murder of two French police officers and an informant in June 1975 and the other for attacks in 1982 and 83 that killed 11 people and wounded 150 others.

At the start of his 2017 trial, he boasted "no one in the Palestinian resistance has executed more people than I have", and claimed responsibility for 80 deaths.

However, the 71-year-old has always denied being responsible for the attack at the shop Drugstore Publicis, on Champs Elysees.

The leftist militant had been linked to the attack by a former associate, despite there being no DNA evidence or fingerprints found after the bombing.

A self-described "professional revolutionary", he joked in court as proceedings started on Wednesday, saying: "I've been on a forced holiday in France for 27-and-a-half years."

Born to a wealthy family in Venezuela's capital of Caracas, Sanchez became one of the world's most wanted fugitives in 1875 when he was part of an attack on a meeting of the OPEC oil cartel in Vienna.

He was part of a group with five other gunmen who took around 40 people hostage, including 11 energy ministers.

Austrian authorities agreed to give Sanchez a plane, so he could fly with his team to Algiers, however, three people were killed during negotiations.

The hostages were then released following a ransom, but Sanchez and the rest of his group walked free.

He was given his nickname by the media after a reporter saw a copy of Frederick Forsyth's "The Day of the Jackal" at his London flat.