Red Army Faction Fugitive Wanted for Decades Is Arrested in Germany
One of Germany’s most wanted fugitives was arrested on Monday after living in plain sight in Berlin, just miles from the seat of government that the police say she fought to overthrow in the 1990s.
The woman, Daniela Klette, who had evaded the police for decades, was wanted in connection with the bombing of a prison in 1993. The police say they believe she was a guerrilla with the Red Army Faction, originally know as the Baader-Meinhof gang, Germany’s most infamous postwar terrorist group.
During her time in hiding, the police say, Ms. Klette and two accomplices, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, who are also wanted in connection with Red Army Faction activities, committed at least 13 violent robberies, netting them about two million euros (a little more than $2.1 million).
Heavily armed police officers apprehended Ms. Klette, 65, in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin in a rental apartment in a plain, beige eight-story building on a street where the Berlin Wall stood during the Cold War. When she was arrested, they said, she presented an Italian passport bearing a fake name. The police also said they found two ammunition magazines and bullets in the apartment, but no gun.
On Tuesday afternoon, the police confirmed the arrest of an older man in Ms. Klette’s circle, but did not give any details other than to say that his age fit the profile of her alleged accomplices.