Brigitte Mohnhaupt - RAF member to be freed after 24 years

× Brigitte Mohnhaupt is not a security risk, court rules
× Families of gang's victims angry at killer's release

Kate Connolly in Berlin

Tuesday February 13, 2007
The Guardian

Two police photographs of Brigitte Mohnhaupt, who has spent 24 years in prison for her involvement in nine murders. Photographs: AP/EPA

A former leader of the Baader Meinhof gang that terrorized West Germany in the 1970s and 80s is to be freed from prison after 24 years following a court ruling yesterday.

Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, who is serving five life sentences plus 15 years for her role in the murders of several prominent Germans, including a banker, a prosecutor and an industrialist, will be freed on five years' probation next month.

In its ruling, made public on its website, the Stuttgart state court said: "This is not a pardon, rather a decision based on specific legal considerations. The decision ... was reached based on the determination that no security risk exists."

The decision was condemned by the families of Mohnhaupt's victims, particularly because she had shown no remorse.

"I regard this as a perversion of justice," said Dirk Schleyer, 54, whose father Hanns Martin Schleyer, a former Nazi and head of the employers' federation, was held hostage by the gang under Mohnhaupt's leadership in 1977 before being killed in cold blood in a French forest. His body was later found dumped in a car boot.

Mr Schleyer said he feared Mohnhaupt's release meant it would never now be possible to establish who shot his father.

The court ruling was also condemned by Konrad Freiberg, the head of Germany's police union, which lost 10 officers in killings by the gang, also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF). "We will not forget these murders. A feeling of bitterness remains," he said.

Mohnhaupt was a leader of the "second generation" of the RAF. She took over after its founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, committed suicide in prison. She played a key role in the wave of terror in 1977 known as the "German autumn", when Germans whom they held responsible for pursuing Germany's economic success at the expense of dealing with its Nazi past, were kidnapped and killed.

She was involved in the 1981 attempted murder of US General Frederick Kroesen, the commander of American forces in Europe, and his wife in a rocket propelled grenade attack on his car. She also presented flowers to a bank executive before shooting him dead. The gang killed 34 people before it was disbanded in 1998.

Mohnhaupt will probably have to change her looks and identity upon release at the end of next month. Most of the more than 20 terrorists who have been freed have been socially rehabilitated. Most work under assumed identities. Mohnhaupt was an artist before the gang became her life and was said to be contemplating a return to painting. She has never given an interview and has never asked for a pardon.

President Horst Köhler is contemplating a pardon for Christian Klar, another gang member who has served 24 years after being given nine life sentences. Two other former RAF terrorists remain in jail.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,2011815,00.html
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*German Court Frees Leader of Terror Group
By JUDY DEMPSEY
Published: February 13, 2007 The New York Times

BERLIN, Feb. 12 ­ A German court on Monday ordered the release of Brigitte Mohnhaupt, a leader of the terrorist Red Army Faction, who has been imprisoned for 24 years for kidnappings and murders in the 1970s.

The decision set off sharp protests, led by the German police union, but was welcomed by several political parties, including the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats.

Konrad Freiberg, the chairman of the police union, said the court’s decision to free Ms. Mohnhaupt on March 27 “left a bitter taste,” adding that the murders would never be forgotten. Günther Beckstein, Bavaria’s interior minister, also criticized the court, noting that Ms. Mohnhaupt had shown no signs of regret.

Ms. Mohnhaupt was a leader of the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader Meinhof gang for its founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. It began with the 1968 student protest movement but evolved into an armed struggle against capitalism. Its activities included bank robberies, bombings of government buildings and United States military sites in Germany, kidnappings and assassinations.

She had petitioned for early release, but the court, in the southern German city of Stuttgart, stressed Monday that she was not receiving a pardon. “Rather, it is a decision that is based on specific legal considerations,” the court said in a statement. “The decision for probation was reached based on the determination that no security risk exists.”

Ms. Mohnhaupt, 57, was given five life sentences plus 15 years in 1985 for her involvement in the 1977 murders of Hanns Martin Schleyer, a leading industrialist, Jürgen Ponto, chairman of Dresdner Bank, and Siegfried Buback, a federal prosecutor, and in several kidnappings and bank robberies. In all, the Red Army Faction murdered 34 people beginning in the early 1970s. It disbanded in 1998, several years after renouncing violence.


Dirk Schleyer, Hanns Martin Schleyer’s son, said the court’s decision “was a perversion of justice.”

But several former ministers who had been in government during the group’s wave of violence praised the decision. Gerhart Baum, the interior minister between 1978 and 1982 and a member of the opposition Free Democrats, said, “A state based on the rule of law is mature enough to give a perspective of freedom to one who has been given a life sentence.”

Born into a comfortable bourgeois family in June 1949, Ms. Mohnhaupt studied English and history at Munich University. There, she joined a commune, participated in student protests and later joined the Red Army Faction.

Her pending release increased speculation on Monday about the fate of another Red Army Faction member, Christian Klar.

Mr. Klar, 54, wrote to President Horst Köhler last year seeking a pardon.

Under normal circumstances, Mr. Klar, who has also served 24 years, would be scheduled for parole in two years.

Mr. Köhler is not expected to make a decision for several months, according to his office.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/world/europe/13germany.html?_r=1&oref=slogin