VERDEN, Germany, May 27 - A court in Verden on Wednesday imposed a 13-year prison sentence on Daniela Klette, whom police have identified as a former member of the extreme-left Red Army Faction, for a series of armed robberies.
Klette, 67, was taken into custody in 2024 after living for more than three decades under an assumed name in Berlin. Her arrest followed an investigative journalist's use of facial recognition software to locate her, according to authorities.
Prosecutors described Klette as part of the so-called third generation of the Red Army Faction - a grouping sometimes referred to as the Baader-Meinhof Gang after its founders. They said that this militant faction pursued the overthrow of what it regarded as a fascist capitalist state and was responsible for the deaths of about 34 people in the period from 1970 to 1991.
The Red Army Faction emerged from leftist protest movements of the 1960s and, prosecutors and historical accounts say, carried out a campaign of kidnappings and assassinations that reached its height in the late 1970s before diminishing as members were arrested or killed.
In 1998 the group issued a final statement declaring an end to its "urban guerrilla warfare," yet some individuals connected to the organization remained at large for years afterward. In Klette's case, police continue to search for two men suspected of having acted as her accomplices - named by authorities as Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, both described as suspected former members of the Red Army Faction.
The court's sentence brings formal legal resolution for Klette on the robberies for which she was tried. However, the continuing efforts to locate the two suspects underscore an ongoing law enforcement interest in unresolved links to the group.
Context and procedural notes
The sentence announced in Verden addresses criminal acts tied to armed theft. Authorities relied on investigative leads that culminated in the 2024 arrest after a prolonged period in which Klette avoided detection by living under an assumed identity.
Details surrounding the alleged activities attributed to the Red Army Faction in the decades referenced were presented by prosecutors at trial, who placed Klette within the RAF's later generation of members.