Accused German Red Army Faction militant sentenced to 13 years

VERDEN, Germany, May 27 (Reuters) – A German court sentenced Daniela Klette, identified by police as a former member of the extreme-left Red Army Faction, to 13 years in prison on Wednesday for a series of armed robberies as well as an attempted kidnapping.

Klette, 67, was arrested in 2024 after more than three decades in hiding when she was found living under an assumed name in Berlin by an investigative journalist using facial recognition software.

A court spokesperson said the verdict disregarded whatever relationship Klette had with the Red Army Faction and was based purely on the robbery charges themselves, in which Klette and two presumed accomplices carried out armed robberies on supermarkets and a cash transporter.

“From the outset, the court emphasised that any terrorist background or political motives on the part of the defendant were of no significance whatsoever in relation to the robberies in question,” the court spokesperson Ahmad Mohamad said.

As the verdict was read out under tight security, the judge was interrupted by angry shouts from supporters of the now grey-haired Klette, German media reported.

When police raided Klette’s flat, they discovered a cache of weapons, including part of a rocket-propelled grenade, as well as 240,000 euros in cash.

Her lawyer, Lukas Theune, said she would appeal the verdict, saying the court had refused to consider a number of submissions for evidence.

The Red Army Faction, which grew out of the leftist protest movements of the 1960s, carried out a wave of kidnappings and murders of prominent officials and business leaders that reached a peak in the late 1970s before gradually petering out as its members were arrested or killed.

Prosecutors said Klette was ⁠part of the so-called third generation of the group – sometimes known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang after ​its founders – a militant group which sought to overthrow what it saw as a fascist capitalist state and killed some ​34 people between 1970 and 1991.

The group issued a final statement in 1998, declaring an end to its “urban guerrilla warfare”, but individual members remained on the run for decades.

In addition to Klette, police are still looking for two men suspected of being her accomplices, suspected former Red Army Faction members Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg.

(Writing by James MackenzieEditing by Keith Weir, Aidan Lewis)