Stuart Christie

When aged 18, Christie was arrested while carrying explosives to assassinate the Spanish caudillo, General Francisco Franco.

Christie was born in the Partick area of Glasgow, Scotland, and was raised in Blantyre by his mother and grandparents, becoming an anarchist at a young age.

[4] On the last day of July 1964, an 18-year-old Christie departed London for Paris, where he picked up plastic explosives from the anarchist organisation Defensa Interior.

[5] Before he left England, he was interviewed for a television programme with Malcolm Muggeridge, a known MI6 contact, and asked whether he felt the assassination of Franco would be right.

[6] After his release he continued his activism in the British anarchist movement, re-formed the Anarchist Black Cross and Black Flag with Albert Meltzer, was acquitted of involvement with the Angry Brigade, and started the publishing house Cienfuegos Press, which for a number of years he operated from Sanday, Orkney, where he also edited and published a local Orcadian newspaper, The Free-Winged Eagle.

[3] Christie attracted criticism from some fellow anarchists for making a gestural protest vote against Labour and its war in Iraq by voting for George Galloway's Respect - The Unity Coalition in the European Parliament elections that year, because of the general anarchist stance against participating in capitalist democracy.

Christie's other books include Stefano Delle Chiaie: Portrait of a Black Terrorist,[13] (on Italian neo-fascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie, founder of Avanguardia Nazionale and member of P2 masonic lodge) and We, the Anarchists!