A former member of Germany‘s far-left Red Army Faction accused of attempted murder and a series of armed robberies is finally facing trial today after more than 30 years on the run.
Daniela Klette, 66, was part of the radical anti-capitalist group known as the RAF or Baader-Meinhof gang, which carried out a series of killings, bombings and kidnappings, mainly in the 1970s and 80s.
She was arrested in February 2024 at her Berlin flat, where police found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, explosives and large sums of cash. She had apparently hidden there in plain sight for two decades.
At the time of her arrest, Klette was the only woman tagged as ‘dangerous’ on Europol’s most-wanted list.
Weeks earlier, the creators of a German ‘most wanted’ podcast had stumbled across photos of Klette on Facebook attending capoeira classes in Berlin, although it is unclear whether this led to her arrest.
The trial – which is being held under tight security in the northern city of Celle – relates to robberies Klette allegedly committed with two other gang members to finance their life on the run after the RAF disbanded in 1998.
After she was detained, prosecutors formally arrested her on suspicion of involvement in three politically motivated attacks in the 1990s, while the gang was still active.
Named after two of its early leaders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the Baader-Meinhof gang emerged out of the radical fringe of the 1960s student protest movement.
Daniela Klette (left), 66, was part of the radical anti-capitalist group also known as the Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhof gang
A 1988 portrait of RAF member Daniela Klette, handed out by German police in 1993
Klette is led to a police helicopter at a government centre, in Karlsruhe, after her arrest last year
Klette faces one charge of attempted murder during a robbery in Stuhr near Bremen in 2015
The group’s members took up arms against what they saw as US imperialism and a ‘fascist’ German state that was still riddled with former Nazis.
Outside the court, some 50 people joined a solidarity protest, playing punk music and holding a banner that read ‘Defend revolutionary history – Freedom for Daniela and all political prisoners’.
Klette was part of a trio – along with fellow gang members Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg – who were active as part of the RAF’s ‘third generation’ in the 1980s and 1990s.
After the RAF disbanded, Klette and the two men are believed to have financed their lives in hiding through armed robberies.
Police are still searching for Garweg and Staub, who would now be 56 and 71 respectively if they are still alive.
The trial in Celle relates to four attacks on money transporters and nine cash heists from shops in which the suspects got away with a total of 2.7 million euros ($2.9 million), according to prosecutors.
Klette is said to have acted as the getaway driver in many of the heists as well as carrying a ‘realistic looking’ dummy bazooka.
She also faces one charge of attempted murder during a robbery in Stuhr near Bremen in 2015.
Prosecutors on Tuesday said the three suspects had ‘proceeded in an extremely conspiratorial manner’, renting cars and apartments under false names and sometimes setting fire to vehicles to cover their tracks.
Pictured: The burned out car of Alfred Herrhausen, chief of West Deutsche Bank, who was killed in an attack claimed by members of the RAF in 1989
Undated handout pictures released by the State Office of Criminal Investigations Lower Saxony shows what is believed to be Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub
The trial is set to last around two years and will hear from 12 witnesses, according to the court.
Klette reportedly put up no resistance when she was arrested at her apartment in Berlin’s bohemian Kreuzberg neighbourhood.
According to German media reports, she had been using a fake Italian passport and going by the name of Claudia Ivone.
Neighbours told the Bild newspaper she had a partner of about the same age as her and always greeted them when she went out walking with her dog.
Klette had no bank account and probably paid her rent in cash, possibly for several months or years at a time, according to Der Spiegel magazine.
Police officers stand in front of a building believed to be the site where a member of the notorious far-left Red Army Faction (RAF) was arrested in Berlin last February
The attacks Klette is accused of committing in the 1990s, which are being dealt with in separate proceedings, include an attempted assault on a Deutsche Bank building in Eschborn, near Frankfurt.
She is also accused of playing a role in a 1991 RAF attack on the US embassy in Bonn, the German capital at the time.
A third accusation relates to a 1993 explosives attack against a prison then still under construction in Germany’s Hesse state.