Germany launches trial of former Baader-Meinhof gang member

Al Jazeera

25-03-2025

A German court has opened the trial of a former member of the notorious far-left Red Army Faction (RAF) who was arrested last year after being found living quietly in Berlin.
Now 66, Daniela Klette was brought to the court near Hanover in northern Germany on Tuesday on charges of attempted murder, illegal possession of firearms and aggravated robbery.
She is accused of committing the offences alongside accomplices Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, who were also part of the 'third generation' of the group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang.
Largely active in the 1970s and 80s, the RAF was responsible for the deaths of at least 30 people. By 1998, the group had disbanded.
However, the trio is alleged to have committed violent robberies to fund their lives on the run. They are accused of stealing a total of 2.7 million euros ($2.9m) between 1999 and 2016.
Police are still searching for Staub and Garweg, who would be aged 56 and 71, respectively, if they are still alive.
Klette is reported to have acted mainly as a getaway driver. However, she also carried a 'realistic looking' dummy bazooka during the heists and faces a charge of attempted murder stemming from one robbery in 2015.
Prosecutors opening the trial said the three suspects had 'proceeded in an extremely conspiratorial manner', renting cars and apartments under false names and sometimes setting fire to vehicles to cover their tracks.
A spokesperson for the German court told the Reuters news agency that Klette potentially faces life in prison.
The trial is expected to last about two years, and 12 witnesses will be heard from, according to the court.
Klette had evaded arrest for more than 30 years when the police raided her Berlin apartment in February 2024 following a tip-off from a member of the public.
She had reportedly been using a fake Italian passport in the name of Claudia Ivone. In her house, police found an automated assault rifle, explosives, and large sums of cash.
The trial is being held in a secure room at the Higher Regional Court in Celle near Hanover due to security concerns.
The building was secured by police and judicial officers armed with machine pistols and sniffer dogs as a crowd of about 50 people held a solidarity protest.
Playing punk music, they held up a banner that read 'Defend revolutionary history – Freedom for Daniela and all political prisoners'.
Named after early leaders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the armed group formed from the radical fringe of the 1960s student protest movement.
In its early days, the group mobilised against what it saw as US imperialism and a 'fascist' German state riddled with former Nazis. It targeted representatives from the government, business, and judiciary.
At the height of its notoriety, the RAF shot a German bank chief dead and kidnapped and killed industrialist and former SS officer Hanns Martin Schleyer.
In separate proceedings to the trial launched on Tuesday, Klette is accused of playing a role in a 1991 RAF attack on the US embassy in Bonn, the German capital at the time, and a 1993 explosives attack against a prison.