German prosecutors on Monday charged a former member of the radical anti-capitalist Baader-Meinhof gang over a series of alleged robberies used to finance her life as a fugitive from the law.
The suspect, Daniela Klette, was part of the so-called “third generation” of the group, also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), which was active in the 1980s and 1990s.
Police swooped on Klette earlier this year at her home in Berlin, where she had been living undercover for the past 20 years.
Working with two other former RAF members, Klette financed her life as a fugitive by “robbing cash offices and armoured ehicles,” the prosecutor’s office in the northwestern town of Verden said in a statement.
The charges related to 12 robberies and one attempted robbery between 1999 and 2016.
In total, the group had stolen cash worth over 2.7 million euros ($2.9 million), according to investigators.
The last and most lucrative robbery came in June 2016, when the group took almost 1.4 million euros from an armoured vehicle.
Klette usually acted as the group’s getaway driver, while the two men held up their targets with firearms and “dangerous tools” such as stun guns, prosecutors said.
She also faced a charge of attempted murder in connection with the attempted robbery in the northwestern town of Stuhr in 2015.
Klette, previously one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives, is suspected to have participated in three violent attacks in the 1990s as a member of the RAF.
The charges brought on Monday only related to crimes committed after the far-left group was disbanded in 1998.
Klette’s activities in the RAF are being investigated separately by federal prosecutors, while her suspected accomplices, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, are still being sought by police.
The Baader-Meinhof gang, named after early leaders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, carried out bombings, kidnappings and killings starting in the 1970s.
The group took up arms against what it saw as US imperialism and a “fascist” German state that was still riddled with former Nazis.prosecutors on Monday charged a former member of the radical anti-capitalist Baader-Meinhof gang over a series of alleged robberies used to finance her life as a fugitive from the law.
The suspect, Daniela Klette, was part of the so-called “third generation” of the group, also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), which was active in the 1980s and 1990s.
Police swooped on Klette earlier this year at her home in Berlin, where she had been living undercover for the past 20 years.
Working with two other former RAF members, Klette financed her life as a fugitive by “robbing cash offices and armoured ehicles,” the prosecutor’s office in the northwestern town of Verden said in a statement.
The charges related to 12 robberies and one attempted robbery between 1999 and 2016.
In total, the group had stolen cash worth over 2.7 million euros ($2.9 million), according to investigators.
The last and most lucrative robbery came in June 2016, when the group took almost 1.4 million euros from an armoured vehicle.
Klette usually acted as the group’s getaway driver, while the two men held up their targets with firearms and “dangerous tools” such as stun guns, prosecutors said.
She also faced a charge of attempted murder in connection with the attempted robbery in the northwestern town of Stuhr in 2015.
Klette, previously one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives, is suspected to have participated in three violent attacks in the 1990s as a member of the RAF.
The charges brought on Monday only related to crimes committed after the far-left group was disbanded in 1998.
Klette’s activities in the RAF are being investigated separately by federal prosecutors, while her suspected accomplices, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, are still being sought by police.
The Baader-Meinhof gang, named after early leaders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, carried out bombings, kidnappings and killings starting in the 1970s.
The group took up arms against what it saw as US imperialism and a “fascist” German state that was still riddled with former Nazis.