PARIS (AP) -- Jailed terrorist Carlos the Jackal is on a hunger strike to protest being transferred to solitary confinement at a high-security French prison, his lawyer said.

The Venezuelan, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, stopped eating and drinking Tuesday after prison authorities tried to move him from his cell, said his lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre.

After refusing the transfer, Ramirez was put in a special disciplinary section, prison officials said.

Ramirez was apprehended in 1994 and convicted for the 1975 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informer. He is serving a life sentence.

Ramirez gained international notoriety during the Cold War for staging a string of deadly bombings, assassinations and hostage seizures. He is also suspected in the 1976 Palestinian hijacking of a French jetliner in flight to Entebbe, Uganda.