Former Red Army Faction member Daniela Klette sentenced to 13 years in Verden

A German court in Verden has sentenced former Red Army Faction (RAF) member Daniela Klette to 13 years in prison for armed robberies of supermarkets and armoured vehicles. Klette had evaded police for more than 30 years while living in central Berlin.

A court in Verden, Germany, has handed down a 13-year prison sentence to Daniela Klette, a former member of the far-left terrorist organisation Red Army Faction (RAF), for her role in a series of armed robberies targeting supermarkets and cash-in-transit vehicles.

Klette's case drew widespread attention not only because of her RAF past but also because of the remarkable circumstances of her capture. Despite being one of Germany's most wanted fugitives, she had managed to evade law enforcement for more than three decades — all while living openly in the heart of Berlin.

The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group, was one of West Germany's most notorious left-wing militant organisations, responsible for assassinations, bombings and kidnappings from the late 1960s through the 1990s. The group officially disbanded in 1998, but several former members continued to live underground.

Klette's arrest in early 2024 shocked many Germans who had assumed the last fugitive RAF members had long since disappeared. Investigators reportedly used facial recognition technology and open-source intelligence to track her down after decades of fruitless searches.

The Verden court's verdict marks a significant moment in the long legal reckoning with RAF-era crimes in Germany, closing a chapter that many had thought would never be resolved.