German left-wing militant jailed after years in hiding
Daniela Klette, a former member of Germany’s radical leftist Red Army Faction, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for a series of armed robberies she committed during 30 years on the run.
A district court in Verden found Klette guilty of aggravated robbery, weapons law breaches and other offenses linked to robberies carried out with two other former RAF members who remained at large in supermarkets and cash-carrying vans.
The case received nationwide attention when Klette was arrested in February 2024 at his Berlin apartment, where he had lived for years under a different name.
Klette, 67, went into hiding when the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group from its founding members Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, disbanded in 1998.
He managed to evade arrest for nearly 30 years and live a normal life in Berlin’s trendy Kreuzberg district; there he reportedly regularly attended capoeira classes, a type of Afro-Brazilian martial arts dance.
Klette was tried in March 2025 on charges of attempted murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, and aggravated robbery; It was allegedly committed together with two other former RAF members, Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub.
Garweg and Staub remain at large, and Klette is believed to have notified Garweg via text when he was arrested.
The trio are said to have stolen more than $2.3 million to finance their lives in hiding between 1999 and 2016, robbing cash-carrying vans and supermarkets in northern and western Germany.
Investigators uncovered guns, ammunition, a fake RPG, fake IDs, wigs, gold and $279,000 in cash in Klette’s apartment.
Prosecutors had requested a 15-year prison sentence for Klette.
The court found Klette guilty of aggravated robbery, attempted aggravated robbery, violation of weapons laws, kidnapping for ransom, and aggravated extortion.
When the presiding judge announced the sentence, the defendant’s supporters protested the decision by loudly booing and chanting “Freedom for Daniela”.
Klette’s defense team argued that the evidence presented in court did not prove he was involved in the robberies.
Lawyer Lukas Theune had called for the suspension of the sentence, citing the weapons found in his client’s apartment, which he admitted constituted a violation of the Arms Law.
The RAF was a far-left militant group founded in 1970 in the former West Germany. It was active until 1998 and carried out a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies and gunfights with the police.
More than 30 people died in RAF attacks in Germany.
The trials at Verden, near Bremen, involved only suspected crimes committed after the RAF was disbanded in 1998.
Klette is also accused of taking part in three RAF attacks between 1990 and 1993, which could have resulted in separate charges including attempted murder.
