German authorities arrested alleged Crimson Military Faction (RAF) fugitive member Daniela Klette in Berlin on Monday after a number of years on the run and evading arrest for armed theft and tried homicide fees, a German public prosecutor’s workplace shared Tuesday. Klette was arrested in Kreuzberg, a district of Berlin, the nation’s capital and largest metropolis. A second suspect was additionally arrested in Berlin, although their identification has not but been confirmed. On Wednesday, authorities shared that the detained man is just not tied to the group.
Klette is an alleged member of Germany’s infamous far-left RAF militant group, which has described itself as a communist and anti-imperialistic city guerilla group engaged in armed resistance towards what it considers a “fascist” state. Based by Andreas Baader en Ulrike Meinhof within the Seventies on the again of German pupil protests towards the Vietnam Warfare, members of the RAF have been engaged with or orchestrated a sequence of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, robberies and shoot-outs with state police over 30 years.
Klette is in custody on fees associated to 6 armed robberies between 1999 and 2016, allegedly carried out with two different suspected members of the group, Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub. Traces of Klette’s DNA had been additionally discovered at one other crime scene in 1991 after the group launched a gun attack on the US embassy within the west German metropolis of Bonn.
A tip from the general public in November 2023 led to Klette’s arrest, mentioned President of the Decrease Saxony State Felony Police Workplace, Friedo de Vries. Talking at a information briefing on Tuesday, de Vries offered particulars on the arrest. “Late yesterday night, police succeeded in detaining Daniela Klette in a Berlin house,” he mentioned. “She supplied no resistance.”
The arrest has been described by officers as a serious victory within the battle on terror. Federal Inside Minister Nancy Faeser called the arrest an necessary sign to the victims of the RAF. “This profitable search is the results of a long time of tireless investigative work. The constitutional state has proven its perseverance and endurance. No person ought to really feel protected underground,” learn a statement from the Inside Ministry.
Klette was flown through helicopter to Bremen, the area the place she dedicated the alleged robberies. She is now awaiting trial in custody in Verden. Each Garweg and Volker Staub stay at giant, and are at the moment on each Germany and the EU’s most wished list.
