Daniela Clett discovered a quiet life in Berlin last year, and has been circumventing authorities for more than 30 years.
A German court has launched a trial for a former member of the infamous far-left Red Army faction (RAF) who was arrested last year after living quietly in Berlin.
Daniela Krett, now 66, was taken to a courthouse near Hanover in northern Germany on Tuesday and charged with attempted murder, illegal possession of a firearm and aggravated robbery.
She is accused of committing the crime along with Ernstvolker’s accomplices of Staub and Burkhard Gerweg, who are also part of the “third generation” of the group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang.
The RAF, which was primarily active in the 1970s and 1980s, was responsible for at least 30 deaths. By 1998, the group had disbanded.
However, the trio is said to have committed violent robberies and run off to fund their lives. They are accused of stealing a total of 2.7 million euros ($2.9 million) between 1999 and 2016.
Bazooka
Police are still looking for Staub and Garweg. Staub and Garweg are 56 and 71 years old, respectively, if they are still alive.
Clett is reported to have acted primarily as a escape driver. However, she also carries a dummy bazooka that “looks realistic” during the robbery and faces accusations of attempted murder resulting from the 2015 robbery.
Prosecutors holding the trial said the three suspects “got it in a very conspiratorial way,” saying they rented cars and apartments under fake names and sometimes set the vehicle on fire to cover their trucks.
A German court spokesman told Reuters that Kret could face life in prison.
The trial is expected to last about two years, and the court says 12 witnesses are expected to be heard.
Security concerns
Krett had avoided arrests for more than 30 years when police attacked an apartment in Berlin in February 2024 after tip-offs from the public.
She reportedly used a fake Italian passport in the name of Claudia Ibone. At her home, police found automated attack rifles, explosives and a large amount of cash.
The trial is being held in a safe room at the superior district courthouse in the cell near Hanover due to security concerns.
The building was secured by police and judicial officers armed with mechanical pistols and sniffer dogs as a crowd of about 50 people received solidarity protests.
Playing punk music, they raised a flag that read, “Preserving revolutionary history – freedom of Daniela and all political prisoners.”
It was named after the early leaders Andreas Bader and Ulrike Meinhoff. It was formed from the radical fringes of the student protests of the 1960s.
In the early years, the group opposed US imperialism and what “fascist” German states were considered to be plagued by former Nazis. It targeted representatives of government, business and judicial.
At the height of its infamy, the RAF shot and tempted the chief of a German bank, killing industrialist and former SS executive, Hands Martin Schlieer.
In separate proceedings to the trial, which began Tuesday, Krett has been accused of playing a role in the 1991 RAF attack on the US embassy in the then German capital, Bonn, and the 1993 explosives attack on prisons.
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