Ex-Red Army Faction militant Daniela Klette sentenced to 13 years for string of robberies while on the run
A former member of Germany's far-left Red Army Faction (RAF), Daniela Klette, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Wednesday for a series of armed robberies she carried out while evading authorities for more than three decades. The 67-year-old was arrested in her Berlin apartment in February 2024, ending one of the country's longest manhunts.
Klette, once part of the radical anti-capitalist group also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, was found guilty of six counts of “particularly serious robbery” committed between 1999 and 2016, along with extortion and weapons offenses. Prosecutors said the three-member cell — including still-at-large accomplices Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub — stole a total of €2.4 million ($2.8 million) from supermarkets and armored cash transports during the spree.
“The high level of criminal intent and the fact the crimes were planned down to the smallest detail and carried out meticulously” drove the verdict, court spokesman Ahmad Mohamad told reporters.
During the robberies, Klette scouted targets, drove getaway vehicles and once wielded a realistic-looking dummy bazooka while her co-conspirators carried assault rifles, according to testimony. Police later found a Kalashnikov, wigs, fake IDs, gold bars and large sums of cash in her Berlin flat.
The RAF, which emerged from the radical student protests of the 1960s and 1970s, waged a violent campaign against what it called U.S. imperialism and a “fascist” German state still riddled with former Nazis. The group is blamed for 34 deaths, including police officers, judges, American soldiers and a former SS officer turned industrialist.
Klette's trial has reignited public debate about how Germany handles aging former extremists and whether the decades-long flight of RAF members represents a lingering failure of the country's security apparatus. Legal experts note that the case illustrates the difficulty of prosecuting fugitives who maintained operational discipline even after their organization formally dissolved in 1998.
In court, Klette showed no remorse. She regularly entered the courtroom beaming and waving to supporters, who at times shouted “Free Daniela!” — leading to at least one person being removed by security. Addressing the court last year, she defiantly vowed to continue the struggle against “capitalism and patriarchy.”
Defense lawyers said they have immediately appealed the verdict.
Separate proceedings are pending against Klette for three politically motivated attacks from the 1990s, including an alleged plot to bomb Deutsche Bank offices in 1990, a machine-gun attack on the U.S. Embassy in Bonn in 1991, and a bombing at Weiterstadt prison near Frankfurt in 1993. Authorities are still searching for Garweg and Staub, who would now be 57 and 72 respectively if alive.
The verdict marks the latest chapter in Germany's long and painful reckoning with left-wing extremism from the Cold War era, a legacy that continues to surface in courtrooms and police investigations more than two decades after the RAF formally laid down its weapons.