Long-sought Red Army Faction suspect charged in Germany for 1990s attacks

BERLIN, March 27 (Reuters) - German prosecutors have ‌charged one of ​the last ​surviving alleged militants of the Red Army Faction with attempted murder and a string of violent attacks carried out more than three decades ago, the federal prosecutor's office said ‌on Friday.

In charges filed on March 23 at a court in Frankfurt, prosecutors ⁠accuse 66-year-old Daniela Klette of attempted murder in two cases, attempted and completed bomb attacks, kidnapping for ransom and aggravated robbery.

Klette ‌was arrested in Berlin in February ‌2024 after more than three decades on the run. German authorities were able to make the arrest after a Canadian investigative journalist used facial recognition software to locate her.

THIRD GENERATION EVADED CAPTURE

Prosecutors ​say Klette was part of the so-called third generation of the far-left RAF - also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang after its founders - which sought to overthrow what it saw as a fascist ⁠capitalist state and killed some 34 people between 1970 and 1991.

While the ringleaders of the first and second generations were largely captured and ​put on trial for murder and attempted murder, many members of the third generation were able to evade capture and go underground.

Klette is accused of participating ​in three attacks between 1990 and 1993, prosecutors said in ‌a statement.

In February 1990, she allegedly helped prepare a car bomb containing more than 45 kg (100 pounds) of explosives placed outside a Deutsche Bank building in ⁠Eschborn. The device failed to detonate, but prosecutors said three security guards would likely have been killed had it exploded.

Klette is also accused of taking part in a 1991 assault in which RAF members fired more than 250 rounds ⁠from the opposite bank of the Rhine at the U.S. embassy in Bonn, endangering the lives of 20 people.

In ​1993, she allegedly joined a group that overpowered guards at a new prison complex in Weiterstadt before planting explosives that caused damage worth 123 million deutschmarks (roughly $73 million).

ALREADY ON TRIAL

The Frankfurt court will now assess whether to open a full ‌trial, a process expected to take several months.

Klette's lawyers, Lukas Theune and Berthold Fresenius, could not be reached for comment.

Klette is already on trial in Celle ‌for a separate series of armed robberies committed between 1999 and 2016, the period after the RAF formally ⁠disbanded.

Prosecutors there accuse her and two accomplices, ‌still at large, of stealing around ​2.7 million euros ($3.1 million) and attempting to shoot their way into a cash van during a 2015 heist.

($1 = 0.8681 euros)

(Reporting by Friederike Heine; Editing by Miranda Murray and ‌Alex Richardson)

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