Former member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) sentenced to 13 years in prison in Germany

Daniela Klette, a former member of the Red Army Faction (RAF), was sentenced to 13 years in prison for a series of armed robberies after 30 years on the run.

A former member of the Red Army Faction (RAF), arrested in February 2024 after 30 years on the run, was sentenced this Wednesday, May 27 at first instance by German justice to 13 years in prison for a series of robberies army committed after the dissolution of the far-left group.

Daniela Klette, 67, belongs to the third generation of the organization which shook the Federal Republic of Germany with attacks, kidnappings and assassinations committed in the name of the anti-imperialist struggle. The RAF self-disbanded in 1998.

Daniela Klette was appearing for robberies committed between 1999 and 2016 with accomplices, Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub, two other alleged former members of the RAF still on the run, to finance their clandestine life.

According to the spokesperson for the Verden court (north-west Germany) Ahmad Mohamad, Daniela Klette displayed “high criminal energy”, a factor “all the more important as all the actions had been planned down to the smallest detail” before being executed.

“During their attacks, they acted in a distributed and very secretive manner,” judge Lars Engelke said in delivering his verdict.

The court has several proofs that Daniela Klette and her two accomplices knew each other very well, including private photos and DNA traces.

The damage peaked at 2.4 million euros

They considered all this “their work” and thus ensured a source of income, Mr. Engelke added.

The targets were armored vans and checkouts from large supermarkets, mainly in the state of Lower Saxony (north). According to the prosecution, the total loot amounted to 2.4 million euros.

When the judgment was announced, a certain agitation was felt among the fifty people present in the room and cries of “Freedom for Daniela” resounded, according to an AFP journalist present in the room.

Daniela Klette’s lawyer, Lukas Theune, announced that he would appeal the judgment. He said he was convinced that this verdict would not be upheld in second instance, believing that the court had “disregarded the mission of justice to critically examine the results of the investigation presented by the police”.

Daniela Klette was arrested a little over two years ago in an apartment in the bohemian Kreuzberg district of Berlin, where she lived for a long time under a false identity – a life in hiding that she enjoyed, according to her own words.

During numerous robberies, Daniela Klette played the role of driver and held a fake “realistic-looking” bazooka, according to the courts.

The defendant showed no remorse

She is also being prosecuted for her participation in three attacks carried out for political reasons between 1990 and 1993, before the dissolution of the RAF. These three attacks are the subject of a separate procedure.

In detail, Daniela Klette is said to have installed explosives in front of the Deutsche Bank administrative building in the suburbs of Frankfurt (center) in 1990, shot at the United States embassy in Bonn (west) in 1991 and participated in an explosive attack against a prison in southern Germany in 1993, according to investigators.

During the entire procedure, Daniela Klette showed no remorse, according to the public prosecutor. Witnesses and victims of the robberies spoke of the serious psychological consequences of what they suffered, sometimes indicating that a normal life was no longer possible due to the trauma.

Having a red star with a machine gun as its acronym, the RAF is judged responsible for around thirty assassinations between 1971 and 1991.

Coming from the radical fringe of the 1968 student movement and known as the “Baader-Meinhof Band” – after the surnames of its founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof – the RAF advocated an “urban guerrilla” against the government and the German elite.

Its main leaders, including Andreas Meinhof and Ulrike Baader, committed suicide in prison in the 1970s. The RAF’s actions left 34 dead, before the group dissolved itself in April 1998.