Daniela Klette, who was arrested in Berlin after decades on the run, was sentenced to 13 years in jail Wednesday for a series of armed robberies committed while she was a fugitive.
Daniela Klette, 67, is a former member of the Baader-Meinhof gang, a radical anti-capitalist group that carried out killings, bombings and kidnappings mainly in the 1970s and 1980s.
While on the run, Klette scoped out targets, drove getaway vehicles and in some heists wielded a “realistic looking” dummy bazooka while acomplices were armed with assault rifles, the court heard.
Klette was arrested in her Berlin apartment in February 2024 after evading authorities for more than 30 years. Police found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, wigs and fake ID cards as well as gold and large sums of cash in her flat.
She was found guilty on Wednesday of taking part in robberies with two male gang members to finance their lives on the run after the group, also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), disbanded in 1998.
Klette was found guilty of six counts of “particularly serious robbery” committed between 1999 and 2016, and other charges including extortion and arms violations.
Defence lawyers said they had immediately appealed the verdict.
The robbers got away with a total of 2.4 million euros, stolen from supermarkets and armoured cash transports, according to prosecutors.
The court noted “the high level of criminal intent” and the fact the crimes “were planned down to the smallest detail and carried out meticulously”, said court spokesman Ahmad Mohamad.
Prosecutors also accuse Klette of three politically motivated attacks in the 1990s, while the gang was still active. Those charges are being dealt with in separate proceedings.
Life on the run
The Baader-Meinhof gang — named after two early leaders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof — emerged out of the radical fringe of the 1960s and 70s student protest movement.
The group took up arms against what they saw as US imperialism and a “fascist” German state still riddled with former Nazis.
The RAF is believed to have been responsible for 34 deaths, including police, judges, American soldiers and a former Nazi SS officer who later became a prominent industrialist.
A number of sympathisers were in court Wednesday, cheering Klette and shouting “Free Daniela!” At least one woman was led away by security personnel.
In separate proceedings, prosecutors accuse Klette of involvement in an RAF plot to blow up the offices of Deutsche Bank in 1990.
She is also said to have strafed the US embassy in Bonn with machine gun fire in 1991 and to have been part of a team that bombed the Weiterstadt prison near Frankfurt in 1993.
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‘Against capitalism and patriarchy’
Klette was part of a trio — with fellow gang members Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub — that were part of the RAF’s “third generation” in the 1980s and 1990s.
Police are still searching for Garweg and Staub, who if still alive would now be 57 and 72 respectively.
“They carried out their robberies with a division of labour and in a highly conspiratorial manner,” said presiding Judge Lars Engelke.
The three had been living in hiding since at least 1999, rented getaway cars under false identities and spoke of the armed robberies as “their work” and source of income, the judge said.
When police came to arrest her, Klette managed to send off a text message to Garweg, allowing him to escape from his Berlin hideout.
During her trial she usually entered the court beaming and waving to supporters, who greeted her with applause.
Addressing the court last year, Klette defiantly vowed to continue the struggle against “capitalism and patriarchy”.
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