Secret police tricked Carlos the Jackal into fleeing Prague, archives reveal

New book casts doubt on accepted picture of communist bloc support for violent radicals during cold war

In June 1986, a pair of operatives from communist Czechoslovakia's StB intelligence service made contact with a mysterious couple staying at a Prague hotel. The man's passport identified him as a Syrian diplomat called Walid Wattar; his pregnant wife also had a Syrian diplomatic passport.

In fact, the man was Venezuela-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, perhaps the world's most wanted terrorist at the time. He was with his wife, Magdalena Kopp, recently released from French prison.