German court paroles former RAF terrorist Mohnhaupt, 57
Monday 12 February 2007 12:50
A German court ordered Monday that Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, one of the "second-generation" leaders of the Red Army Faction (RAF) leftist terrorist group, be paroled after 24 years in custody.
The RAF campaign of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations 30 years ago created one of Germany's worst modern political crises.
Conservative Germans had voiced anger in recent weeks that prosecutors were calling for her punishment to be commuted. She has never apologized for her crimes. When she leaves jail on March 27, only three other RAF figures will remain in custody.
Fears have been voiced that she might return to her personal "war" against the state, as she did in 1977 after a five-year jail term.
The original RAF leaders, Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, had committed suicide in jail in 1976 and 1977, and Mohnhaupt was part of the new leadership, taking the former "Baader-Meinhof Gang" to a worse level of brutality.
During 1977 she took part in the murders of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, head of the German employers' federation, and Siegfried Buback, federal prosecutor general. She personally shot dead Juergen Ponto, chief executive of Dresdner Bank. She was not captured until 1982.
The state superior court in Stuttgart said Monday, "Taking public safety into account, the court has decided parole is proper. "
It added that it saw no evidence she was "still dangerous. " Her parole is not permanent, but initially lasts for five years. She will have a probation officer and must regularly report to the police.
The petite blonde joined the RAF at age 21: "Her life since has been only two states, in the underground or in jail," said Wolfgang Kraushaar, a scholar who has studied the RAF. Mohnhaupt has yet to develop any adult identity separate from the RAF, he said.
The RAF, made up of middle-class students and intellectuals, believed that killing top Germans would lead to a police state, which was "good" because it would persuade the working class to revolt. But West Germany kept democracy. The RAF dissolved itself in the 1990s.
Konrad Freiberg, president of the German police union GDP, said his members felt somewhat bitter at her release, as she had murdered nine German police and one Dutch policeman during her crime spree.
But Klaus Uwe Benneter, a senior Social Democratic supporter of Chancellor Angela Merkel, welcomed her release, telling NTV television that German law prescribed parole for good behaviour.
"We have always said we have no political prisoners in Germany, so we have to treat her the same as any other criminal," he said.
At trial she was convicted of leading the appalling abduction of Schleyer, who was murdered weeks later by his captors. She is serving five concurrent life terms and a 15-year term with a rider that she serve at least 24 years, a period that will expire on March 26.
Jailers at Aichach Prison in Bavaria say she has been pleasant and well-behaved and has made nine excursions under guard to see the outside world.
The other three members of the RAF still in custody are Christian Klar, 54, who was Mohnhaupt's co-leader, Eva Sybille Haule, 52, and Birgit Hogefeld, 50. Klar has applied to German President Horst Koehler for clemency. His first chance for parole is in 2009.
http://jurnalo.com/jurnalo/storyPage.do?story_id=17086
Originally posted by AmauroteTerrorism terroschmism...
[b]German court paroles former RAF terrorist Mohnhaupt, 57
Monday 12 February 2007 12:50
A German court ordered Monday that Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, one of the "second-generation" leaders of the Red Army Faction (RAF) leftist terrorist group, be paroled after 24 years in custody.
The RAF campaign of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations 30 ye ...[text shortened]... parole is in 2009.
http://jurnalo.com/jurnalo/storyPage.do?story_id=17086[/b]
As I understand it, the same criminal code applies to her as to everyone else - the real joke of course is that the German state has always been desperate to create the impression that they were treating the RAF as common criminals while in practice treating them as anything but: the courts and prisons they were tried and incarcerated in were purpose-built. In reality there was a private war between the RAF and the German state, which is why virtually all the casualties were terrorists and gendarmes, not civilians...the total dead was minimal by today's gory standards.
Being honest, I have very mixed-feelings about the Baader-Meinhof group - as terrorists go, they were an offshoot of a very exciting anticapitalist movement that focused completely on property (the June 2nd Movement was maybe the healthy side of B-M, Baumann's memoirs are wonderful, right up there with Bobby Sands' work), and they started well. The real horror started with the Second Wave.
PS: Mohnhaupt is particularly interesting, because she was the liaison between the RAF and the PFLP - remember those heady days when Middle Eastern terrorists were left-wing secularists?