Former member of German militant group jailed for 13 years for armed robberies

A former member of the German militant group Red Army Faction (RAF) has been jailed for 13 years for carrying out a string of armed robberies between 1999 and 2016.

Daniela Klette, 67, was finally caught in a flat in Berlin in 2024 after more than 30 years on the run. She went on trial last year.

Her defence had called for her acquittal but the court in Verden in Lower Saxony found her guilty on Wednesday of aggravated robbery, violating weapons laws and other offences over a 17-year period.

Klette’s RAF group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, was eventually disbanded after a campaign of murder, kidnapping and bombing from the early 1970s to the early 1990s.

The court found that Klette had robbed supermarkets and armoured vans along with two other former members of the RAF faction, Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub, who have not yet been caught.