Daniela Klette Gets 13 Years for $2.3 Million Robberies After 30 Years in Hiding
Updated
Updated · The Canberra Times · May 27
Daniela Klette Gets 13 Years for $2.3 Million Robberies After 30 Years in Hiding
12 articles · Updated · The Canberra Times · May 27
A Verden court sentenced former RAF member Daniela Klette, 67, to 13 years in prison for aggravated robbery, attempted aggravated robbery, kidnapping for ransom, aggravated extortion and weapons offenses.
Prosecutors said Klette and two former RAF associates stole more than $2.3 million from supermarkets and cash-in-transit vans between 1999 and 2016 to finance life underground after the group disbanded.
Her 2024 arrest in a Berlin flat ended roughly 30 years on the run; investigators found weapons, ammunition, forged IDs, wigs, gold and $279,000 in cash, while the other two suspects remain at large.
The defense had argued the trial evidence did not tie her to the robberies and sought a suspended sentence limited to weapons violations, but prosecutors had asked for 15 years.
The case revives scrutiny of the Red Army Faction, which killed more than 30 people before dissolving in 1998, and Klette still faces possible separate charges over three attacks from 1990 to 1993.
With one radical fugitive jailed, can Germany's investigators now find her two elderly accomplices still at large?
Her supporters call her a heroine. What does this case reveal about radicalism's legacy in modern Germany?
AI helped unmask a fugitive after 30 years. How many others are still hiding in plain sight?