Heavy weapons were found on the arrested former RAF terrorist Klette. The search for the two suspected accomplices who are still wanted is in full swing.
A suspected ex-terrorist has been caught and the search for her two accomplices from the RAF continues at full speed. Four days after the arrest of former RAF terrorist Daniela Klette, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) asked the public for help in finding the two men.
“After arrest in Berlin, search for 2 suspected former RAF terrorists,” wrote the BKA on the Internet portal X (formerly Twitter). BKA and LKA Lower Saxony “ask for help”. The Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office suspects that the men could also be in Berlin. Despite the weapons found near Klette (65), there is “no concrete threat situation” for Berlin.
Ernst-Volker Staub (69) and Burkhard Garweg (55) are at the top of Europol’s “Europe’s Most Wanted List”, which is used to search for serious criminals and terrorists. It remained unclear whether all three were together until Klette’s arrest.
Heavy weapons found
It is more likely that everyone lived their own lives and came together to commit crimes, said a spokesman for the responsible public prosecutor’s office in Verden, south of Bremen. It is also not yet known whether a new robbery was already planned because the weapons were stored in the apartment instead of in a remote depot.
At the same time, the criminal police continued to investigate Klette’s apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg, where she was caught on Monday evening, and the weapons and other items were found. The police union (GdP) meanwhile called for more options when using facial recognition programs.
There is extensive information about dust and cooking on the wanted pages of the BKA, Europol and LKA. The BKA emphasizes: “The investigating authorities are also specifically targeting the families of the accused, their circle of friends and former RAF supporters.” Tips could be submitted confidentially via a protected internet system. According to the public prosecutor’s office, tips are still being received from the public. This also includes anonymous or fake messages. “It all has to be filtered.”
Reward totaling at least 150,000 euros
The BKA warns: “Please do not approach the people you are looking for, they could be armed!” The European police authority Europol also expressly states: “Dangerous.” It is added: “A reward totaling at least 150,000 euros has been offered by various authorities for information that leads to the arrest of the accused.”
In Klette’s apartment, the police found a rocket-propelled grenade, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a submachine gun, a pistol and ammunition. According to the investigators, it is reasonable to suspect that the two wanted accomplices, Staub and Garweg, could also have stashed weapons and explosives. Their apartments could pose a “potential risk to the population,” it was said on Thursday.
The accusations
The three suspected former RAF terrorists are said to have committed robberies on money transporters and supermarkets in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia between 1999 and 2016. They are also accused of attempted murder because shots were fired during robberies. There are also arrest warrants on suspicion of involvement in terrorist attacks. Klette, who is in custody, is keeping quiet about the allegations, according to the public prosecutor’s office.
Garweg, Klette and Staub belong to the so-called third generation of the left-wing extremist organization Red Army Faction (RAF). During their active time, the then Deutsche Bank boss Alfred Herrhausen (1989) and Treuhand boss Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (1991) were murdered and Herrhausen’s driver was seriously injured.
Police are proceeding “very cautiously”.
Masked criminal police were once again working in Klette’s apartment in Kreuzberg today. “Defuser Berlin” was written on a badge. The apartment was searched “very intensively and very carefully” by experts, said the spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office. “We won’t go in there like an ax in the woods.” You also don’t just put weapons in your bag.
This should also explain why the officers only found firearms and a rocket-propelled grenade days after the arrest – after there was initially only talk of ammunition on Tuesday. It was said that traces of the weapons found would be searched for in the laboratory – fingerprints or DNA traces. The evaluation is still ongoing: “We have secured extensive material.”
Research with facial recognition program
The police union (GdP) called for more options when using facial recognition programs. “It is no longer possible to convey that the police are not allowed to use such helpful software in the age of artificial intelligence, automation and digitalization,” criticized GdP chairman Jochen Kopelke. Such bans could also be to blame for Klette’s late arrest. The use of facial recognition is only possible “within a very narrow legal framework, which is why it is not widely used”.
The police had been looking for Burdock for decades and then, according to their own statements, received a “tip from the public” in November 2023. They searched for her, watched her and finally caught her on Monday. At the same time, an investigative Canadian journalist found older photos of Klette and her dance groups in Berlin using a facial recognition program on the Internet in the fall. Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD) is quoted in “Spiegel” as saying: “Facial recognition software was not used in the target search following the tip from November 2023 about Daniela Klette.”
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
