Ex-Red Army Faction militant gets 13-year prison term for armed robbery
Police vehicles leaves the premises of the provisional courthouse of the Regional Court of Verden
After decades spent out of sight, Daniela Klette has been handed a 13-year prison sentence by a German court for a string of armed robberies carried out between 1999 and 2016, in a case that revives one of the country’s darkest chapters of political violence.
Klette, 67, was arrested in 2024 after evading authorities for more than 30 years. Investigators found her living in Berlin under an assumed name after an investigative journalist tracked her down with the help of facial recognition software.
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The Red Army Faction, born from the left-wing protest movements of the 1960s, unleashed a campaign of kidnappings and killings that peaked in the late 1970s before slowly fading from view.
Police vehicles leaves the premises of the provisional courthouse of the Regional Court of Verden
Prosecutors said Klette belonged to the group’s so-called third generation. Also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang after its founders, the militant organisation aimed to topple what it regarded as a fascist capitalist state and was responsible for the deaths of about 34 people between 1970 and 1991.
Police are still searching for two men they believe were her accomplices: Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, both former members of the Red Army Faction.
