Spanish communist and NKVD agent who assassinated Russian Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in August 1940 with an ice axe. He served 19 years and 8 months in Mexican prisons for the murder.
In October 1939, Mercader moved to Mexico City. Leon Trotsky was living with his family in Coyoacán, then a village on the southern fringes of Mexico City. He was exiled from the Soviet Union after losing the power struggle against Stalin’s rise to authority.
On 20 August 1940, Mercader was alone with Trotsky in his study under the pretext of showing the older man a document. Mercader struck Trotsky from behind and mortally wounded him on the head with an ice axe while he was looking at the document.
The blow failed to kill Trotsky, and he got up and grappled with Mercader. Hearing the commotion, Trotsky’s guards burst into the room and beat Mercader nearly to death. Trotsky, deeply wounded but still conscious, ordered them to spare his attacker’s life and let him speak.
Trotsky was taken to a hospital in the city and operated on but died the next day as a result of severe brain injuries.
Trotsky’s guards turned Mercader over to the Mexican authorities, and he refused to acknowledge his true identity.
In 1943, under his pseudonym Jacques Mornard he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Sixth Criminal Court of Mexico. His true identity as Ramón Mercader eventually was confirmed by the Venona project after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Mercader was awarded with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, Order of Lenin, and the Gold Star after his release from the Mexican prison in 1960. He divided his time between Cuba, the Soviet Union, and other countries.
His cousin, actress María Mercader, became the second wife of Italian film director Vittorio De Sica, the father of Italian comedy actor Christian De Sica.
Ramón Mercader died in Havana, Cuba on 18 October 1978 of lung cancer at age 65.
Link to Wikipedia biography