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German Court Orders Release of Killer Who Belonged to Red Army Faction

2008-11-26

A German court on Monday ordered the release of a former leader of the Red Army Faction, the Marxist group that terrorized West German industrialists, bankers and politicians, as well as U.S. military officials, in the 1970s and 1980s. Christian Klar, 56, will be freed on parole in January after serving 26 years for murdering nine people and attempting to kill 11 others, according to a decision handed down by a panel of judges in Stuttgart. Only one other member of the Red Army Faction remains behind bars, as German judicial authorities have gradually allowed several convicted murderers from the group to rejoin a society they once swore to tear apart. In August 2007, Eva Haule, 53, was released after serving 21 years for the 1985 murder of a U.S. soldier, Spec. Edward Pimental, and other crimes. Pimental, 20, was shot after he left a dance club in the city of Wiesbaden. RAF members later used his military identification to drive a bomb-laden Volkswagen past a checkpoint at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt. Two Americans, Airman 1st Class Frank Scarton and Becky Jo Bristol, a civilian employee, were killed when the bomb exploded outside the base headquarters. In March 2007, German officials paroled Brigitte Mohnhaupt, now 58, another leader of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group. Among other crimes, she and Klar organized a 1981 rocket attack in Heidelberg that nearly killed Army Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, who was then commander of U.S. forces in Europe, and his wife. Unlike some RAF members, Klar has never apologized or expressed remorse for his crimes, stirring a public controversy in Germany over whether he ought to be freed. In January 2007, he wrote a rambling letter to a conference of left-wing political groups in Berlin, urging them to "complete the defeat of the plans of capitalism."

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Europe

Germany: Ex-RAF terrorist Klar granted parole

2008-11-24

Christian Klar, a former leader of the Red Army Faction terrorist group who was convicted of multiple murders, will be released early next year after 26 years in prison, a Stuttgart state court has ruled. Klar, 56, no longer poses a threat to society, the court ruled on Monday. He will likely be released on January 3. He currently serving multiple life sentences, but will have served the minimum 26 years as of January. Klar was convicted in 1985 of involvement in the murders of nine people and the attempted murder of 11 for the leftist terrorist group, including the murders of West Germany's top prosecutor Siegfrieg Buback and Hanns-Martin Schleyer, president of the country's employers' association. Buback, a strong opponent of the leftist terrorist group during his term, was killed along with his driver Wolfgang Göbel, and a judicial officer, Georg Wurster, on the way to the courthouse in Karlsruhe in 1977. A motorcycle pulled up to Buback's Mercedes at a stoplight, and a passenger on the back opened fire with an automatic weapon. Buback's murder was the first crime in a series of terrorist acts by the militant communist RAF group in their radical opposition to the West German government that came to be known as "German Autumn" in 1977. Schleyer was kidnapped in September by the RAF and killed by his captors one-and-a-half months later after the government did not give in to their demands. Another RAF leader, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, was released last year after the Stuttgart court determined that she no longer posed a threat to society. The RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang after two of its leading members, emerged from the 1968 student protest movement and was committed to combatting "capitalist imperialism" in what it called a corrupt West German society. The group is thought responsible for the deaths of 34 people. Christian Klar has shown little public remorse for his crime and caused headlines last year when he wrote in a Marxist newspaper that Europe was ruled by an "imperial pact" and that society must continue to work for the "final defeat of capital." He asked to be paroled in 2007 but his application was turned down by German President Horst Köhler, who did not give a reason. However, on Monday the Stuttgart court said Klar had "completely changed." A film dramatizing the group's activities is now playing in cinemas in Germany and abroad. "The Baader-Meinhof Complex" has been named as Germany's official entry for the 2009 foreign language film Oscar. Klar is played by actor Daniel Lommatzsch in the film.

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Europe

Red Army Faction guerrilla to stay in jail

2007-05-08

The German president, Horst Köhler, yesterday bowed to pressure from his fellow conservatives and refused clemency to a key member of the Red Army Faction movement involved in terrorising Germany three decades ago. Mr Köhler, who last week secretly met Christian Klar, 54, who is serving six life sentences for nine murders carried out in the 1970s, gave no reason for his decision, but his office said it had been based on lengthy discussions with legal experts, prison authorities and personal meetings with the relatives of some of the RAF's victims as well as with Klar. The German media had been waiting with bated breath for Mr Köhler's verdict, which is just the latest in a series of twists and turns in Germany's attempts to draw a line under the RAF chapter and the trail of destruction the gang left across the country in the autumn of 1977 in its efforts to crush capitalism. The 30th anniversary of the so-called "German Autumn" is being marked with the release of films, plays, books and biographies on the urban guerrillas. You drew a line when you jugged them all. Now keep them there. Between 1970 and 1991, the RAF - which was also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang after its founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof - is believed to have carried out 34 murders, largely of industrial leaders and senior public figures. The decision on Klar comes shortly after the release from a multiple life sentence of former RAF leader Brigitte Mohnhaupt. In a separate decision Mr Köhler refused to pardon another member, Birgit Hogefeld, who is 14 years into a life sentence for the 1985 bombing of a US military air base in which two people died. Klar was sentenced to a minimum of 24 years in prison for his part in nine murders, including those of the chief West German federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback, the industrial association leader Hanns-Martin Schleyer and Jürgen Ponto, the head of Dresdner Bank in 1977. Mr Köhler's decision to meet Klar was based on a request from the former terrorist. But the mere fact that Klar's release was being contemplated brought angry reactions from many Christian Democrats who count Mr Köhler as one of them. They argued that, because Klar had shown no public remorse, he did not deserve to be shown any mercy. They even indirectly threatened not to elect Mr Köhler for a second term if he decided to release Klar. The attacks on Mr Köhler became so fierce that the chancellor, Angela Merkel, weighed in and asked her colleagues not to interfere with his decision. "I ask that we all, regardless of how the president decides in the end, respect the decision of Horst Köhler," she said in a statement. "And then we'll cut him off at the knees." Klar's case was weakened after it was discovered he had sent a message this year to a leftwing conference which conservatives warned was proof that he had lost none of his revolutionary verve. He talked of "completing the defeat" of capitalism and "opening the door for a different future".

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Home Front: WoT

Berlin probes 30-year-old terrorist murder

2007-04-26

A terror case has been revived in Germany, with the top prosecutor re-launching an investigation into a decades-old murder. Monika Harms, Germany's top federal prosecutor, said Wednesday in Karlsruhe her office will investigate former Red Army Faction terrorist Stefan Wisniewski in connection with the 1977 murder of one of her predecessors in office, Siegfried Buback. The investigation was launched only a few days after a report in German news magazine Der Spiegel said Wisniewski was a key person in the killing that shocked Germany in April 1977. At the time, two individuals on a motorcycle approached Buback's limousine, with one man pumping at least 15 bullets into the car, killing Buback, his driver and a police officer. Even though four RAF members -- Christian Klar, Knut Folkerts, Guenter Sonnenberg and Brigitte Mohnhaupt -- were formally charged and prosecuted in connection with the Buback murder, the identity of the two individuals on the motorbike and who actually fired the shots were never resolved. In an interview with Der Spiegel, another former RAF terrorist, Peter-Juergen Boock, said the man who fired the shots must have been Wisniewski -- who was convicted in connection with other murder cases -- as he had undergone military training with the semi-automatic weapon used at the crime scene. Harms' office will question Boock within the next days, she said. The RAF was an anti-capitalist terrorist group that killed 34 people in a bloody campaign aimed at destabilizing the German state. Sponsored, supported, armed and trained by eastern European communist governments.

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Europe

German militant freed after 24 years in jail

2007-03-25

Brigitte Mohnhaupt, a former leader of the Red Army Faction group which terrorised Germany in the 1970s, left jail Sunday after serving 24 years for a series of guerrilla murders. The plan to release the 57-year-old Mohnhaupt, who was once considered Germany's most dangerous woman, on parole has caused widespread controversy. Mohnhaupt, who was convicted for her role in nine murders in the left wing group's campaign against the West German state in the 1970s, was released from a prison in southern Germany in the early hours, justice official Wolfgang Deuschl said. "Frau Mohnhaupt has been freed," he told reporters, adding that the woman was collected at the prison by friends. A German court last month granted her parole because she has served her minimum sentence and is no longer considered a threat. But the families of the victims of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, have bitterly opposed the release, partly because Mohnhaupt has never expressed remorse for the murders. An unrepentant Marxist murderer... and they let her go. She was part of the second generation of RAF leaders who took over after Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ennslin were caught and committed suicide in jail. The RAF's campaign reached a bloody crescendo in the so-called German Autumn in 1977 when they kidnapped and killed leading industrialist and former Nazi Hanns-Martin Schleyer and hijacked a Lufthansa passenger plane with the help of Palestinian militants. Schleyer's widow was among those who opposed Mohnhaupt's release, saying she was "appalled" at the move. Ah. Palestinians. Who could have guessed... The RAF is believed to have killed 34 people. Its other victims include the head of Dresdner Bank, Juergen Ponto, who was shot dead on his doorstep. The group also launched attacks against US military personnel stationed in Germany. In 1981, Mohnhaupt helped to launch a rocket attack on an American general, Frederick Kroesen. He barely survived. The former philosophy student was finally arrested at an RAF arms cache in a forest near Frankfurt in 1982. With a record like that, these people should have hanged. Her release had initially been scheduled for Tuesday. Mohnhaupt has given no indication of what she wants to do outside prison. A priest who has regularly visited her in prison in Bavaria in southern Germany over the past 15 years, said she was a "very nice" person who would lead a peaceful life, like other former RAF activists who had completed their prison sentences. Gullible fool... "The RAF has renounced violence and Brigitte Mohnhaupt did so along with them," priest Siegfried Fleiner told AFP. "She is an independent and intelligent woman," he added. Fleiner said he believed Mohnhaupt will find it difficult to re-adjust to life outside prison but added: "Lately she has been reading several newspapers a day. She is very well-informed about world events." Trust me, that's not a good sign. The RAF disbanded in 1988, but the hardliners and their class war still fascinates Germans. In recent days newspapers have recalled the violence-filled German Autumn in detail. Some 20 former militants of the group have been freed after serving lengthy sentences. Only three still remain behind bars, including Christian Klar who led the group along with Mohnhaupt. Klar was last month refused prison day releases after calling for "the total defeat of the capitalists' aims" in a speech read out on his behalf at a Marxist meeting in Berlin. Mohnhaupt's release comes as Italy is again confronted with the memory of the Red Brigades, who conducted a similar anti-capitalist struggle in the 1970s, with the arrest of fugitive Cesare Battisti who was long sheltered in France.

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Europe

Red Army Faction Terrorists' Prison Sentences Near Completion

2007-01-19

Germany is considering the release of two of the principal leftist terrorists who mounted a campaign of kidnapping and assassination 30 years ago and created one of Germany's worst political crises of the 1970s. Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar are both serving life terms but qualify this year to apply for parole for good behavior. Neither has explicitly renounced a belief in violent revolution, but supporters say the 57-year-old woman and 54-year-old man will not go back underground to fight the state, but instead seek personal fulfillment after spending half their lives in custody. While their victims are still dead. Death has already claimed the founders of the Red Army Faction (RAF), a group of students and intellectuals who planned to engineer a communist uprising by the West German working class. The RAF's plan involved high profile assassinations. The bizarre theory was that by assassinating senior business and justice officials, they could provoke the government into establishing a police state, which would make communism seem a desirable alternative to the masses. But they had no popular support. West Germany preserved democracy and gradually caught most of the middle-class terrorists. Leaders Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin committed suicide in jail in 1976 and 1977. Suicide? Some say ... not. How exactly did the West Germans 'preserve democracy'? How did they 'catch' the terrorists? The writer glosses over the hard work and sacrifice of many a police officer, judge, anti-terrorist specialist and soldier. To them: thank you. Mohnhaupt and Klar have served longer terms in custody than any other former RAF terrorists and are among only four still serving out jail terms. The rest have been gradually paroled and are living out unremarkable lives in German cities. As far as you know. A panel of state superior court judges is set to give Mohnhaupt a hearing on Jan. 22 to consider if she should be granted parole from her five life terms and 15-year term, all concurrent, when she reaches the point on March 26 of having served 24 years. She has already made nine excursions from prison, with armed police watching her, to prepare her for a changed world that is connected by the Internet and only dimly remembers communism. As part of the RAF "second generation" after the founders' suicides, she led a particularly nasty 1977 Red Army Faction kidnap in which Hanns Martin Schleyer, head of the West German employers' federation, was seized from his car, and found dead 44 days later. Schleyer's widow, Waltrude, called this week for the terrorists to be kept in jail, pointing out they had never shown contrition. In 1993, Mohnhaupt sent a statement from jail opposing an RAF surrender. I'm with Waltrude on this one: until she makes a complete confession, alocution and statement of remorse she can stay in prison.

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