terrorism
Men arrested were not former RAF terrorists
Police officers at an armored vehicle. photo
© Paul Zinken/dpa
After a major operation in Berlin, it is suspected that, after Daniela Klette, the former RAF terrorists Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg were also caught. But that is a mistake.
The two men provisionally arrested in Berlin today are not the former ones RAF terrorists Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg. A spokeswoman for the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office said this after a major police operation in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain. The extent to which the people temporarily arrested are connected to the RAF search is the subject of the investigation.
The operation was carried out a few days after the arrest of former RAF terrorist Daniela Klette. Staub (69) and Garweg (55), like Klette (65), went into hiding over 30 years ago. All three belonged to the third generation of the former left-wing extremist terrorist organization Red Army Faction.
The RAF was the epitome of terror and murder in Germany for decades. In 1998 it declared itself dissolved. During the active terrorist period of Staub and Garweg, the then Deutsche Bank boss Alfred Herrhausen (1989) and Treuhand boss Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (1991) were murdered and Herrhausen’s driver was seriously injured. Klette, Staub and Garweg are also accused of a series of later cash-in-transit robberies, some of which involved the use of firearms and a rocket-propelled grenade.
Shots fired
During the operation in the morning, shots were fired by emergency services in connection with a door being opened, said the LKA spokeswoman in Hanover. There were no injuries. When asked about media reports that it could only have been the sounds of gunshots, the spokeswoman confirmed that shots had been fired.
According to a dpa reporter, several people were taken away by police officers during the operation – possibly to establish their identities. The LKA Lower Saxony confirmed the arrest of two men to the dpa this morning. Other dpa reporters reported on a special operations team and an armored vehicle on site. A police dog was also used.