Manhunt: The RAF retirees were involved in these attacks

display

The result from the laboratory came as a surprise: On January 18, 2016, the media reported that Ernst-Volker Staub, Burkhard Garweg and Daniela Klette were still criminally active.

This was proven by traces of DNA that had been secured in Stuhr near Bremen after a failed attack on a money transporter in June 2015, but which had taken months to evaluate.

This finding was the trigger for public searches, which were even expanded across Europe in 2020.

Nevertheless, the three who have gone into hiding since the late 1980s could not be traced.

"It's crazy that these people are still beyond the reach of the police," says terrorism expert Butz Peters.

There is nothing new about the search, said the Verden public prosecutor's office on request.

Dust is now 66 years old, Klette 62 and Garweg 52.

The State Criminal Police Office used this poster to search for RAF pensioners Staub and Garweg for attempted murder in 2016

Source: dpa

It was also traces of DNA that brought these three left-wing extremists into direct contact with the Red Army Faction (RAF).

The "first generation" of this terror group around Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof 1970 to 1972 and the "second" around Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Stefan Wisniewski, Peter-Jürgen Boock and Christian Klar from 1975 to 1982 still left fingerprints.

The members of the “third generation” avoided this from 1983 onwards.

display

They had learned from the reports on the attacks and the subsequent trials that the investigators used every impression they left behind as a piece of the puzzle to reconstruct the connections between the individual RAF terrorists.

It was fingerprints that brought Christian Klar into connection with the getaway car in the triple murder of Federal Prosecutor General Siegfried Buback and his two companions in 1977 or proved which members of the RAF were present in the conspiratorial apartment in the house at Zum Renngraben 8 in the Cologne high-rise housing estate Erftstadt-Liblar - and were therefore seen as accomplices and were later often convicted.

The members of the “third generation” probably mostly used gloves and, if that would have been too conspicuous, spray plasters.

For example, in the murder of Ernst Zimmermann, the boss of the engine manufacturer MTU, on February 1, 1985 near Munich, the young woman of the couple who acted as a decoy did not wear gloves - and still did not leave a fingerprint.

However, almost everywhere that people stay, there are inevitably other traces - namely dead skin particles and individual hairs that have fallen out.

However, this biomaterial could not be evaluated in the 1980s.

display

The genetic fingerprint has only been allowed in court since 1988.

This evidence was used for the first time in a case of rape and murder, in which the defense lawyer, the convicted RAF supporter Hans-Christian Ströbele, vehemently spoke out against the new proceedings.

He probably knew why.

But in the early days of forensic DNA comparison, trace experts still needed blood (or semen) to obtain a sufficient gene sequence;

a professionally taken saliva sample is sufficient for comparison.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the method improved so much that torn hair (to which some cells of the hair roots were still attached) could also be analyzed.

However, dead skin or hair that had fallen out was only sufficient since the late 1990s.

Since then, the process has developed even further, so that almost every biological material can now be assigned to individual individuals if the necessary comparison samples are available.

display

In May 2001 it could be proven: The RAF terrorist Wolfgang Grams, who first murdered a GSG-9 official at the Bad Kleinen train station at the end of June 1993 and then committed suicide, had definitely been at the scene of the last RAF murder attempt , of the assassination attempt on trustee Detlev Karsten Rohwedder in 1991. A hair that was secured there could be assigned to him without any doubt.

This is what Burkhard Garweg, Ernst-Volker Staub and Daniela Klette could look like today: Age simulations by the Federal Criminal Police Office

Source: picture alliance / dpa

In the same way, Ernst-Volker Staub, Burkhard Garweg and Daniela Klette could also be linked to specific RAF crimes.

In January 2002, the Federal Prosecutor's Office announced that after the attack on the US Embassy in Bonn-Bad Godesberg on February 13, 1991, a hair had been secured in the getaway car, which was now assigned to Daniela Klette.

With three assault rifles, one Kalashnikov and two NATO weapons, three perpetrators fired at the building from the promenade in Königswinter from around 300 meters across the Rhine in the early evening of this Wednesday;

62 bullets hit the US embassy and some window panes were broken.

About 190 more shots caused property damage to neighboring private houses.

The hair proved: In the legal sense, Klette was an accomplice, regardless of whether she shot herself or "only" drove the getaway car.

Across the Rhine, three RAF terrorists shot several magazines each at the US embassy in Bonn-Bad Godesberg in 1991

Source: picture-alliance / dpa

In October 2007, the Federal Prosecutor's Office confirmed that the search for burdock and dust was also due to the last major RAF crime, the bomb attack on the Weiterstadt correctional facility in Hesse, which had not yet been put into operation in 1993.

Sometime between 2002 and 2007, the two DNA traces found there could be assigned.

The same thing happened shortly afterwards with Garweg, the last RAF member still wanted.

Klette was also able to prove that she was involved in an attempted car bomb attack on the computer center of Deutsche Bank in Eschborn: Her hair was also found in the VW Golf that had been converted into a bomb.

In addition, the 1993 investigation of the alleged leader of the “third” RAF generation, Birgit Hogefeld, revealed evidence that she had been in direct contact with the three wanted.

That fulfilled the criminal offense of section 129a, formation of a terrorist organization.

Nevertheless, these allegations against the three RAF pensioners who went into hiding (the group officially dissolved in 1998) would probably no longer be punishable today.

Because all criminal offenses of the left-wing terrorists except murder and attempted murder are now statute-barred.

The Weiterstadt correctional facility shortly after the attack by the RAF terrorists

Source: picture alliance / dpa

display

But neither the shots at the US embassy, ​​nor the bomb attack on Weiterstadt, nor the unexploded car bomb would be judged by a German court today as an attempted deliberate killing for base motives.

In cases of doubt, the judges in the rule of law would always have to rule in favor of the accused.

There is no doubt that Ernst-Volker Staub, Burkhard Garweg and Daniela Klette would have to go to jail because of the robberies with which they have allegedly financed their expensive underground life for more than two decades.

The maximum sentence for serious armed robbery is 15 years;

Given the plethora of crimes attributed to the trio, they would be sure to be behind bars for at least ten years after their arrest.

If a court even decided on attempted murder for the attacks on the money truck personnel, it would be a few more years.

You can also find “World History” on Facebook.

We look forward to a like.