Red Army Faction fugitive Klette starts trial, charged with attempted murder in Germany

Record ID: 1985418

  • Title: Red Army Faction fugitive Klette starts trial, charged with attempted murder in Germany
  • Date: 25th March 2025
  • Summary: CELLE, GERMANY (MARCH 25, 2025) (REUTERS) PASSING POLICE VANS WITH SIRENS BLARING ESCORTING SILVER UNDERCOVER POLICE VAN BELIEVED TO CARRY DANIELA KLETTE MASKED POLICE STANDING NEAR COURT ENTRANCE PASSING POLICE VANS / GATES CLOSING COURT SPOKESMAN AHMAD MOHAMAD SPEAKING TO REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (German) VERDEN COURT SPOKESMAN, AHMAD MOHAMAD, SAYING: " We are here today be
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Celle trial Daniela Klette RAF Red Army Faction radical left wing group
  • Location: VARIOUS, GERMANY
  • City: VARIOUS, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Europe,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions
  • Reuters ID: LVA001144525032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:Daniela Klette, a member of Germany's Red Army Faction (RAF) militant group who was arrested in 2024 after three decades on the run, arrived at a Celle court on Tuesday (March 25) to begin her trial.
    Klette, now in her mid sixties, was a member of the so-called third generation of the RAF and had long been sought alongside two other members of the group, Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub.
    She was arrested in a Berlin apartment on the evening of Feb. 26, 2024.
    Prosecutors have charged Klette, accused of being one of the last surviving members of the Red Army Faction group that terrorised Germany from the 1970s, with robbery, attempted murder and possession of a firearm.
    Klette is accused with two accomplices of stealing more than 2.7 million euros in cash through raids on money transport vehicles and supermarkets between 1999 and 2016.
    On one occasion, during a 2015 raid in Stuhr, she is accused of training a gun on the person she was attempting to take money from.
    Klette's lawyer cast doubt on the charges, telling public TV: "It's still being claimed that she deliberately aimed at and shot the driver of a money transport, something which has been disproved by the investigation itself."
    The left-wing militant group sprang out of Germany's anti-Vietnam war protests and killed some 30 people - German politicians and businessmen and U.S. soldiers - during the 1970s and 1980s.
    The trio's suspected crime spree came after the group formally wound itself up in 1998.
    Tuesday's start of the trial was held at Celle's Higher Regional Court after authorities determined there was not enough space in Verden, seat of the court in charge.
    A larger courtroom is currently being constructed in Verden, according to a court spokesperson, and hearings there should be possible from the end of May, he added.

    (Production: Erol Dogrudogan, Stephane Nitschke, Tanya Wood)
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