Red Army Faction fugitive Klette charged with attempted murder in Germany

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By Thomas Escritt

BERLIN (Reuters) – Prosecutors have charged Daniela 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, who was arrested in Berlin in February after decades on the run, 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, Verden prosecutors said on Monday.

Her 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 justice minister for Lower Saxony state said when Klette, 66, was arrested in February that all three suspects belonged to the so-called third generation of the Red Army Faction.

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.

Verden prosecutors said in a statement she was believed to have formed the gang with the other two suspects, who remain at large, “to secure herself a steady income stream from attacks on cash offices and money transports”.

The Verden district court must now decide whether to admit the charges and take Klette to trial.