The police are continuing their search for the two suspected ex-RAF terrorists – the current focus is on Burkhard Garweg. The investigators had taken away his home, he was most likely traveling without logistics – and Garweg was “really on the run”, which could be incriminating, said a spokesman for the Verden public prosecutor’s office. His biggest concern is a short-circuit act. He appealed to Garweg to turn himself in to avoid possible escalation.
The 55-year-old Garweg went into hiding more than three decades ago – together with Daniela Klette, 65, who was arrested last week, and Ernst-Volker Staub, 69, who was also a fugitive. Most recently, Garweg is said to have spent time in a construction trailer on a site in Berlin. Friedrichshain lived. The police had searched the area and two Berlin apartments in the past few days, and the construction trailer was removed for further investigations. This means: Garweg’s environment is gone and the pressure on him is increasing, said the spokesman for the Verden public prosecutor’s office.
Burkhard Garweg is said to have temporarily lived in this trailer in Berlin-Friedrichshain – the police transported him away on Monday morning for further investigations.
(Photo: Dominik Totaro/dpa)
On Tuesday night there was another major police operation in Berlin-Friedrichshain: emergency services searched an apartment in a student dormitory, as a spokeswoman for the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office (LKA) said. Nobody was arrested. Photos show how heavily armed police officers wearing helmets broke into the dormitory on the street of the Paris Commune at night.
In view of the intensive police search, members of the left-wing extremist scene appear to be defending themselves with targeted references to LKA units. On the Indymedia website, anonymous authors published photos of civilian police vans, license plates of special operations teams and locations where operations were being prepared. The website says they want to “counter the manhunt” and show solidarity with the former RAF members who went into hiding.
The police seize a camper van on the A5 motorway
In the search for Garweg and Staub, the police expect further searches and longer investigations. According to the investigators’ findings, like Klette, the two belonged to the so-called third generation of the now-defunct left-wing extremist terrorist organization Red Army Faction. During the active terror period of the third generation, the then Deutsche Bank boss Alfred Herrhausen (1989) and Treuhand boss Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (1991) were murdered. There are arrest warrants against Klette, Staub and Garweg on suspicion of involvement in terrorist attacks and for several robberies between 1999 and 2016 against money transporters and in supermarkets. They are also accused of attempted murder because there was a shooting.
After an apartment search on Monday morning, another operation followed in the afternoon on Autobahn 5 south of Darmstadt; Among other things, special forces were involved, as an LKA spokeswoman said. Accordingly, there were no arrests or arrests, but a camper was towed away. The spokeswoman did not provide any details about the vehicle.