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<font size=3>Red Army Faction Member Released From German Prison <br>
By JUDY DEMPSEY<br>
Published: December 19, 2008 <br>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/world/europe/20germany.html?ref=europe" eudora="autourl">
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/world/europe/20germany.html?ref=europe<br>
</a> <br>
BERLIN Christian Klar, one of the last members of the terrorist Red
Army Faction to remain in prison, was released Friday after serving 26
years of a life sentence, according to the Justice Ministry in the German
state of Baden-Württemberg.<br>
<br>
The Red Army Faction, a far-left group that was also known as the
Baader-Meinhof gang, carried out a series of assassinations of leading
German figures during the late 1970s and early 1980s, killing 34 people.
It disbanded in 1998, several years after renouncing violence. It
subscribed to a Marxist-Leninist ideology and sought to overthrow the
capitalist West German government and to fight perceived American
imperialism. <br>
<br>
A German court announced the pending release of Mr. Klar, 55, last month.
He had received a a life sentence for killing three prominent West
Germans and their bodyguards and trying to kill a United States Army
general. He was released a few weeks earlier than planned after the
authorities in Stuttgart said he no longer posed a threat. He will remain
on parole for five years. <br>
<br>
Two years ago, Mr. Klar asked President Horst Köhler to grant him a
pardon and early release, but the request was turned down. Mr. Klar, who
at the time of his arrest in 1982 was considered the country’s
most-wanted terrorist fugitive, was sentenced for, among other crimes,
participating in the kidnapping and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the
head of the German employers’ federation; the assassination of Siegfried
Buback, a federal prosecutor, as he rode in his chauffeured car; and the
killing of Jürgen Ponto, chairman of Dresdner Bank, in his home. <br>
<br>
With Mr. Klar’s release, Birgit Hogefeld is the last member of the Red
Army Faction to remain behind bars. A fellow gang member, Brigitte
Mohnhaupt, was released last year after serving 24 years in prison for
murders in the 1970s. Eva Haule, who was convicted of participating in
the murder of an American soldier in 1985 and the later bombing of the
Rhein-Main Air Base on the outskirts of Frankfurt when it was the main
base for United States forces in Europe, was also released last year,
after 21 years in prison.<br>
<br>
In an effort to crack down on the movement in the 1970s and 1980s, the
authorities at first reacted by introducing emergency legislation and
curbing civil liberties. <br>
<br>
Jailed terrorists were denied access to their lawyers, and at one stage
armored personnel carriers patrolled Bonn, then the seat of the West
German government. Prison conditions for Red Army Faction members were
criticized by some liberal politicians, who started questioning why West
Germany’s postwar generation had acted so violently against the state,
and slowly the tough measures were reversed. <br>
<br>
Mr. Klar was held in solitary confinement for seven years. Several
terrorists committed suicide in prison, giving rise to speculation that
they might have been murdered by state commandos. <br>
******************************************************************************<br>
Former German terrorist released after 26 years<br>
By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer Melissa Eddy, Associated Press
Writer 2 hrs 32 mins ago <br>
December 19, 2008<br>
<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYkJ7sq0CpUxO3J9MbKwXkem0qnAD955VPMO0" eudora="autourl">
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYkJ7sq0CpUxO3J9MbKwXkem0qnAD955VPMO0<br>
</a> <br>
BERLIN – Throughout the 1970s, the Red Army Faction was the scourge of
capitalist West Germany and Christian Klar one of its most notorious
leaders the force behind a murder spree that included the slayings of a
federal prosecutor, an industrialist and the chief of a major bank.<br>
On Friday, Klar walked free from prison after 26 years angering family
and friends of victims and many Germans who recalled the fear of living
through the Marxist-Leninist group's terror campaign, which killed 34
people and injured hundreds before the group formally disbanded in
1998.<br>
<br>
Opponents of Klar's release argue he has never expressed regret for his
crimes, nor explicitly distanced himself from the Red Army Faction mantra
that it was justified in its brutal response to what it viewed as
capitalist oppression of workers and U.S. imperialism in West
Germany.<br>
"That a hardened criminal who was handed six life sentences could be
released under such circumstances may be legally justifiable, but remains
very difficult to accept," said Stephan Mayer, a lawmaker for the
conservative Christian Democratic Union.<br>
<br>
German law is based on the principle of rehabilitation and it is very
common for convicted murderers to serve less than 20 years for life
sentences. Several other former members of the Red Army Faction have also
been released.<br>
<br>
Only one former member of the group, Birgit Hogefeld, remains in prison.
She will be eligible for parole in 2011.<br>
<br>
Yet as a ringleader of the group's second generation, which carried out
the "German Autumn," an especially bloody period of leftist
violence in late 1977, Klar is perhaps Germany's most prominent former
left-wing terrorist to walk free.<br>
<br>
As the decades have passed, the Red Army Faction has become the stuff of
pop culture, giving rise to a string of television dramas and feature
films, many of which have faced criticism for glamorizing the era and
portraying the young killers as Robin Hood-type characters.<br>
Several of the group's symbols, such as its trademark machine gun and red
star, have found their way into fashion items, from T-shirts to infant's
bodysuits marked "Terrorist."<br>
<br>
The latest movie, "The Baader Meinhof Complex," directed by Uli
Edel, came out in September and has been chosen as Germany's contender
for a foreign-language Oscar nomination despite criticism from families
of the gang members that it misrepresents the group and is too
violent.<br>
In its early years RAF was often referred to as the Baader-Meinhof gang,
after leading members Andreas Baader who killed himself in prison after
failed efforts to secure his release through extortion and Ulrike
Meinhof, who also committed suicide in prison.<br>
<br>
Under Klar, the so-called second generation of the group went on to bomb
U.S. military targets and assassinate a string of business and political
figures.<br>
<br>
Among the murders for which Klar was convicted were those of chief West
German federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback, industrial association head
Hanns-Martin Schleyer, and Dresdner Bank chief Juergen Ponto all
carried out in 1977.<br>
<br>
Buback's son has repeatedly urged Klar to explain who pulled the trigger
on his father when he and his two drivers were gunned down on April 7,
1977. Yet despite a fierce public debate and a review of the case,
ordered by the nation's top security official, Klar has remained
silent.<br>
<br>
Asked Friday if he would be willing to speak with Klar, Buback said that
while he wouldn't seek him out, he wouldn't hang up if he called.<br>
<br>
"If Christian Klar would call me to tell me about what he or others
did, of course I would speak with him," Buback told Focus weekly.
"After all, we are still searching for the truth."<br>
Klar's lawyer, Heinz-Juergen Schneider, expressed doubt his client would
seek to make any statements to the public, insisting Klar was seeking to
start a normal life.<br>
<br>
Klar has been in prison since his arrested on Nov. 16, 1982. Ten years
later, he was sentenced to six concurrent life sentences, as well as
individual 15-year, 14-year and 12-year sentences. <br>
According to Schneider, Klar plans to move to Berlin, where he was taking
up an offer of apprenticeship at one of the nation's leading theaters,
the Berliner Ensemble founded by legendary leftwing playwright Berthold
Brecht as a stage technician. <br>
<br>
The theater's director, Claus Peymann said at the time he felt Klar
deserved a chance to try to reintegrate into society after so many years
in prison.<br>
******************************************************************************<br>
Former Left-wing Terrorist Christian Klar Released <br>
<i>Deutsche Welle</i>, December 19, 2008<br>
<a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3888586,00.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3888586,00.html<br>
</a> <br>
Christian Klar, 56, a former leader of the Red Army Faction (RAF) urban
terrorist movement in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, was released from
jail Friday, justice officials in Stuttgart said.<br>
<br>
Klar was granted parole by judges on November 24 after he had served 26
years of five concurrent life sentences. He had previously been denied
parole, with a Stuttgart court ruling in 1998 that he needed to complete
at least that much of his sentence.<br>
<br>
One of the leading figures of the second generation of the left-wing
group RAF, Klar was sentenced for his role in the kidnapping and murder
of industry representative Hanns Martin Schleyer as well as the murders
of Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and Dresdner Bank CEO Juergen
Ponto. He has not indicated remorse for the nine murders he was tried for
and it remains unclear what his exact role was in those killings. <br>
<br>
Klar has continued to observe a vow of silence taken among the group's
members, refusing to disclose which of the masked figures committed the
most brutal murders. Judges, however, have ruled that he no longer
presents a danger to society. <br>
<br>
Victims outraged at release<br>
<br>
Some survivors of the RAF's brutalities said last month they were angry
that life imprisonment did not mean the full term of Klar's life. <br>
<br>
"It is intolerable that a violent criminal who caused people such
immeasurable pain and has never distanced himself from his grave crimes
will soon be given freedom," Hamburg's interior minister, Christoph
Ahlhaus, said after learning of Klar's impending release.<br>
<br>
Judges said in November that Klar, who served longer in jail than any
other RAF member, should be freed on or around January 3, 2009. Possibly
to thwart media attention, the precise date was not announced in
advance.<br>
<br>
Second last RAF member to leave jail<br>
<br>
Heinz-Juergen Schneider, his lawyer, said Klar had left the jail during
the morning and would not be giving any interviews.<br>
<br>
"He is going to decide himself what he will be doing and
where," said Schneider.<br>
<br>
There is only one RAF member still in jail: Birgit Hogefeld, 52. She was
a third-generation leader of the violent communist group, which dissolved
itself in 1998.<br>
<br>
A feature film released this year, The Baader-Meinhof Complex, depicts
murders and robberies carried out by the clandestine group. <br>
<br><br>
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