Germany’s most wanted woman jailed after three decades evading police

A German court has sentenced Daniela Klette, a former member of the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof group, to 13 years in jail for armed robberies committed during three decades hiding in plain sight.Long Germany’s most-wanted woman, Klette was the last female member of the far-left terrorist network still on the run before her arrest at her home in Berlin in February 2024.After a 14-month trial under tight security, the Verden regional court found her guilty of six counts of aggravated robbery in conjunction with kidnapping for ransom and possession of military weapons.The 67-year-old was convicted for robberies committed between 1999 and 2016 after the dissolution of the RAF, intended to bankroll the remaining fugitives’ lives underground.“They carried out their robberies with a division of labour and in a highly conspiratorial manner,” said the presiding judge, Lars Engelke.As the court pronounced the guilty verdict, Klette listened impassively while a tumult broke out in the public gallery, local media reported.Sympathisers booed the judges and chanted “freedom for Daniela”. A group of supporters gathered outside the courtroom earlier in the day holding signs reading “solidarity with Daniela”.Supporters of Daniela Klette demonstrate outside court before the start of her trial in March 2025. Photograph: Ronny Hartmann/AFP/Getty ImagesKlette spent more than 30 years evading police until she was tracked down living under a pseudonym in the German capital.Officers uncovered a cache of weapons and a fake bazooka in her flat in the Kreuzberg district, where she had lived for about 20 years, as well as forged identity documents, wigs, gold and €240,000 (£208,000) in cash believed to be from the proceeds of the robberies.Prosecutors – who had called for the maximum 15-year sentence – said Klette and her accomplices, Burkhard Garweg, 57, and Ernst-Volker Staub, 72, targeted cash transport vehicles and supermarkets in three states. The trio is believed to have made off with more than €2m.From left: Burkhard Garweg, Ernst-Volker Staub and Daniela Klette. Photograph: German federal criminal police/APInvestigators said they had found DNA from both men at Klette’s flat when she was captured, including on an electric toothbrush. Staub and Garweg are still at large.The defence had argued for her acquittal, saying there was no proof of her involvement in the robberies and that the weapons charges deserved no more than a suspended sentence.At the start of the proceedings in March 2025, the now silver-haired Klette broke her silence to rail against what she said was a politically motivated trial, and vowed to stay true to the fight against “capitalism and the patriarchy”.Prosecutors also accuse Klette of three politically motivated attacks in the 1990s, while the RAF was still active, but those charges are being dealt with in separate proceedings in Frankfurt.She can no longer be tried for membership of a terrorist organisation as the statute of limitations for that charge ran out in 2018, 20 years after the group disbanded.Under a false name, Klette was deeply involved in a Brazilian culture centre in Berlin for several years, where she practised capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines dance and fighting. It is thought that the discovery of photographs of her with her capoeira group at Berlin’s annual carnival of cultures – smiling, a white bandana on her head and tossing petal confetti – led to her identification and arrest.Daniela Klette pictured at Berlin’s 2009 carnival of cultures. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesThe RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang after its founding members, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, was behind a campaign of terror in what was then West Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, involving attacks, kidnappings, bombings and murders.The radical anti-capitalist group took up arms against what they saw as US imperialism and a “fascist” German state still riddled with former Nazis. It is believed to have been responsible for killing at least 30 people and injuring 200.