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Operation in Berlin-Kreuzberg: weapons found, grenades brought out

Photo: Christian Mang / REUTERS

Weapons were found in the Berlin apartment where former RAF terrorist Daniela Klette lived.

This was confirmed in the evening by a spokeswoman for the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office.

“Der Tagesspiegel” had previously reported on the weapon discovery.

The evacuation of the residential building in the Kreuzberg district had nothing to do with this weapon discovery, said the LKA spokeswoman in Hanover.

The police also took grenades out of the house.

“So far, our forensic scientists have taken a grenade out of the building on Sebastianstrasse in Kreuzberg and rendered it harmless at another location,” the police wrote that evening on X, formerly Twitter.

“Further items are currently being examined.”

Rental house cleared

In the afternoon, the apartment building was evacuated due to a possible danger.

All residents had to leave their apartments and the sidewalk in front of the house and a neighboring house was closed.

A police forensic investigator said: "Because we found something that is dangerous." In the evening, a police spokesman told SPIEGEL that police measures were ongoing and that residents were still unable to return to their apartments.

Fire departments, ambulances and other police cars drove up to the house on Wednesday.

Klette was arrested by police in an apartment on the fifth floor of the house on Monday evening.

The apartment had since been examined.

After Klette's arrest, the police found, among other things, magazines from a weapon and cartridges; the weapons were not initially discovered.

Burdock is silent

The 65-year-old Klette is now in custody in Lower Saxony.

She lived underground for more than 30 years, now she is supposed to lead the investigators on the trail of her accomplices Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg.

Klette did not provide any information about the allegations to the responsible investigating judge at the Verden district court, as a spokeswoman for the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice said.

The Verden public prosecutor's office accuses the three former members of the left-wing terrorist Red Army Faction (RAF) of attempted murder and a series of serious robberies in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia between 1999 and 2016.

The investigators assume that the accused committed the crimes in order to get money for their underground life.

The trio Klette, Staub and Garweg are assigned to the so-called third RAF generation.

aeh/hba/dpa