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The Verden regional and district court.
© Sina Schuldt/dpa
Daniela Klette, who was wanted as an RAF terrorist, lived in an apartment building in Berlin-Kreuzberg for around two decades.
Neighbors know her as “Claudia” and describe her as “actually quite nice”.
Berlin - Uniformed police officers stand in front of the inconspicuous apartment building in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
The entrance to the seven-story building on Sebastianstrasse near the former border between West and East Berlin will be closed on Tuesday.
Forensic investigators are on site.
Police officers carry larger boxes into the house, apparently to remove items.
Numerous camera teams follow the scene.
On Monday evening, after more than 30 years of manhunt, the former Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist Daniela Klette was caught here.
The 65-year-old is in custody for several robberies, as the Verden public prosecutor's office and the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office announced on Tuesday in Hanover.
Lived under a false identity
According to the Hanover State Criminal Police Office (LKA), Klette, who was wanted as a terrorist, lived in the Berlin apartment under a false identity.
LKA President Friedo de Vries said she did not resist her arrest.
During the search, investigators said they found magazines from a weapon and cartridges, among other things.
A weapon has not yet been found.
The arrest by target investigators was preceded by years of investigative work led by the Verden public prosecutor's office.
She accuses the accused of “among other things, several acts of robbery and attempted murder, which she is said to have committed together with her alleged accomplices Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg,” as the LKA statement said.
The search continues for 69-year-old Staub and 55-year-old Garweg.
Another arrest in Berlin
Shortly after Klette's arrest, however, investigators arrested another person in Berlin.
It is a man in the “desired age group,” said LKA President de Vries.
The identity of the arrested person is still being clarified.
It is not certain whether his identification document is real.
The Verden public prosecutor's office and the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office have been searching for the trio Burdock, Staub and Garweg for decades.
They are assigned to the so-called third RAF generation.
Brought to Bremen by helicopter
Klette is now in custody.
According to the LKA, she was flown by helicopter to Bremen on Tuesday and from there taken to the Verden district court.
A judge issued the arrest warrants against the 65-year-old.
At the request of the Verden public prosecutor, a search warrant was also issued for the apartment.
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Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) also sees the arrest of the former RAF terrorist as an important signal to the victims of the Red Army Faction's actions.
“This successful search is the result of decades of tireless investigative work.
The constitutional state has shown its persistence and staying power.
Nobody should feel safe underground,” Faeser was quoted as saying in a statement from her ministry.
“The arrest shows that the perseverance of the investigative authorities is paying off,” said Berlin’s Justice Senator Felor Badenberg (independent).
“It was crucial to maintain the persecution pressure in order to protect the population from further serious acts.”
Neighbor: superficial contact
According to a neighbor, the former RAF terrorist is said to have lived under the first name Claudia.
In order to earn money, she is said to have given private tutoring in mathematics, the middle-aged neighbor said on Tuesday in front of the inconspicuous apartment building.
It is said that she lived there on the 5th floor for around 20 years.
He often talked to Klette, who used a different last name.
He received cookies from her for Christmas.
But Klette only maintained rather superficial contacts with the neighborhood.
“She always said hello and was actually quite nice,” said a young person from the neighborhood on Tuesday.
“I only ever saw her alone with her dog and her bike.” She was a little afraid of the 65-year-old’s big dog.
She looks very friendly and wears her gray hair tied in a ponytail.
Several residents say that Klette was never accompanied.
RAF expert Butz Peters hopes for far-reaching clarification
According to dpa information, Klette is suspected of being involved in a gun attack on the US embassy in Bonn in 1991.
It is also suspected that she was involved in an explosive attack on the Weiterstadt correctional facility in 1993. Traces indicate that she was also at the crime scene during the 1993 anti-terror operation in Bad Kleinen, Mecklenburg.
The police officer Michael Newrzella and the RAF man Wolfgang Grams died in the action.
Former RAF terrorist Birgit Hogefeld was arrested.
After Klette's arrest, RAF expert Butz Peters hopes for a far-reaching investigation into the crimes of the third generation of the RAF.
“Now there is a chance to shed light on the crimes of the third RAF generation,” Peters told the editorial network Germany (RND).
He expects that the 65-year-old's investigators will now "make the leniency program palatable," said Peters, who works as a lawyer and has written several books about the RAF.
“Then she has to decide.”
Robberies instead of politically motivated acts
Representatives of the third generation of the RAF are said to have killed the then head of Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen, and the head of Treuhand, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder.
However, the perpetrator and motive are still unknown to this day.
Rohwedder was shot dead at his desk in his home in Düsseldorf on April 1, 1991.
The RAF command claimed responsibility for the crime.
Rohwedder was targeted from an allotment area and more than 60 meters away.
It was the last assassination attempt attributed to the RAF.
The authorities accuse Garweg, Staub and Klette of attempted murder and a series of aggravated robberies between 1999 and 2016.
The crime scenes were therefore in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.
The public prosecutor's office assumes that the attacks were not politically motivated.
The accused are said to have committed the crimes in order to get money.
Many clues after a search call in “Case number XY... unsolved”
Most recently, on February 14th, the Verden public prosecutor's office requested information about former RAF terrorists in the ZDF program "Aktenzeichen XY... unsolved".
According to its moderator Rudi Cerne, the response was great.
There were more than 250 tips, the LKA Lower Saxony said on Tuesday.
The manhunt was discussed again and again in the program.
However, Klette's arrest was not due to the search call in the program.
After the most recent call, there were numerous tips from the public.
In Wuppertal, the main train station was cordoned off over a large area on February 18th and heavily armed special police forces took a man out of a train because an eyewitness mistook him for a wanted ex-RAF terrorist.
The suspicion that it was Ernst-Volker Staub was not confirmed.
dpa