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.
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.
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 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)
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