Coutant-Peyre represented
Zacarias Moussaoui early on during his imprisonment, while he was awaiting trial for his role in the
terrorist attacks of
11 September 2001. Married to a civil servant, she had three sons; Florent, Gabriel and Aurélien. She became a lawyer and worked with
Jacques Vergès, defender of
Djamila Bouhired and she supported her defence of "revolutionary fighters" with income from her activities as a business lawyer. In her political cases, she employed "rupture" techniques. She was briefly jailed for likening
French police to the
Gestapo. Her former fiancé,
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as "
Carlos the Jackal", is held at
Clairvaux Prison, part of the general inmate population, and their attempts to marry were frustrated by legal issues.
Conjugal visits can only be made after a civil marriage occurs; a Muslim ceremony performed in 2001, when Carlos was married to his second wife and Isabelle was married to her first husband, reportedly had no legal force. Her clients included
Stellio Capo Chichi, Youssouf Fofana (murderer of
Ilan Halimi),
Roger Garaudy, Mohamed Benalel Merah (father of
Mohammed Merah responsible for the
Toulouse and Montauban shootings),
Charles Sobhraj, and the
Islamic Republic of Iran against the film
Argo. ==Death==