“Red Army Fraction”
Investigators comment on the second arrest of RAF terrorist Daniela Klette
A wanted poster in the Verden district court: The former terrorist of the Red Army Faction (RAF), Daniela Klette, has been caught in Berlin. The search for Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg continues.
© Sina Schuldt / DPA
The former RAF terrorist Daniela Klette is in custody. Investigators also reported a second arrest. It is now said that he is a man in the “desired age group” – but not a sought-after “RAF pensioner”.
After the arrest of the former RAF terrorist Daniela Klette, the investigators continue the search for the former RAF members Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg unabated. One thing is certain: “We will continue to search,” said the President of the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office (LKA), Friedo de Vries. After the 65-year-old was arrested, another person was also arrested in Berlin.
However, this is not one of the two former RAF terrorists wanted. The man was released from police action, as the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office announced on Wednesday morning in Hanover. The search for the two criminals who are still on the run was ongoing.
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Klette was caught in Berlin on Monday evening. When she was arrested, she offered no resistance, de Vries said. The 65-year-old is in custody for several robberies. According to the LKA, Klette, who was wanted as a terrorist, lived in a Berlin apartment under a false identity – according to a neighbor, under the first name Claudia. During the search, investigators reportedly found, among other things, magazines from a weapon and cartridges. A weapon has not yet been found. Investigators were still in Klette’s apartment on Tuesday evening, and police officers carried bags out of the house, as a dpa reporter reported.
RAF arrest result of years of investigation
The arrest by target investigators was preceded by years of investigative work led by the Verden public prosecutor’s office. The prosecution accuses Klette, Garweg and Staub of attempted murder and a series of serious robberies between 1999 and 2016; the crime scenes were in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The public prosecutor’s office assumes that the attacks were not politically motivated – the accused are said to have committed the crimes in order to get money for their underground life. The trio Klette, Staub and Garweg are assigned to the so-called third RAF generation.
About the different generations of the terrorist group, journalist and RAF expert Stefan Aust said on ZDF’s “heute journal” on Tuesday evening that the second generation tried to free the first from prison. “When that didn’t work, there was the third generation, and they did one thing: they simply committed murder. They simply shot people or set traps for them.”
According to dpa information, Klette is also suspected of being involved in a gun attack on the US embassy in Bonn in 1991. It is also suspected that she was involved in an explosive attack on the Weiterstadt correctional facility in 1993. Traces indicate that she was also at the crime scene during the 1993 anti-terror operation in Bad Kleinen, Mecklenburg. The police officer Michael Newrzella and the RAF man Wolfgang Grams died in the action. Former RAF terrorist Birgit Hogefeld was arrested.
Daniela Klette’s statement is considered unlikely
When she was brought before the responsible investigating judge at the Verden District Court, Klette did not comment on the matter, said a spokeswoman for the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice. It remains to be seen whether she will get involved over the next few days and weeks.
The son of Federal Prosecutor General Siegfried Buback, who was murdered by the RAF in 1977, Michael Buback, was “not overly optimistic” after Klette’s arrest that further RAF crimes could now be solved. “Why should Ms. Klette behave differently than other RAF members who do not burden themselves or others?” he told the editorial network Germany.
Most recently, the Verden public prosecutor’s office again appealed to the population on the ZDF program “Aktenzeichen XY… unsolved”. The program brought around 250 new tips – but several thousand tips had been processed in the past nine years, said de Vries. Klette’s arrest was not based on the search call in the program.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) said of Klette’s arrest: “The constitutional state has shown its persistence and staying power. Nobody should feel safe underground.”