A German regional court on Wednesday sentenced 67 year-old Daniela Klette, a former member of the far-left militant Red Army Faction (RAF), to 13 years in prison for her role in a series of armed robberies she committed during decades on the run.
Klette, described by outlets in the past as “Germany’s most-wanted woman,” spent three decades of her life as a fugitive of the law due to her past involvement with the Red Army Faction, a violent far-left group that killed dozens and injured hundreds before it disbanded in 1998. She was finally arrested on February 26, 2024 in Berlin, where she was found to have been hiding in plain sight all these years under a false identity. Her conviction follows a roughly a year-long trial process that reportedly began in March 2025.
German authorities accused Klette and fellow former RAF members Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg of committing a series of armed robberies against cash-in-transit vehicles and supermarkets across several cities in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia between 1999 and 2016, after RAF’s dissolution. Prosecutors reportedly argued that the trio committed the robberies to fund their underground fugitive lives. At press time, Staub and Garweg remain on the run.
Manhunt poster of the West German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt), searched left-wing terrorists: Sabine Elke Callsen, Daniela Klette, Andrea Martina Klump, Barbara Meyer, Horst Ludwig Meyer, Christoph Eduard Seidler, Ernst Volker Staub – October 1993 (ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty)
Die Welt reports that a Verden regional court convicted Klette of aggravated robbery, attempted aggravated robbery, violations of weapons laws, extortionate kidnapping, and aggravated extortion. Five of the offenses were not further prosecuted, and the case instead focused on eight robberies committed by the group. Per Deutsche Welle, some 2.4 million euros (roughly $2.8 million) were collectively stolen by the group throughout their armed robberies.
Supporters of the elderly former far-left militant gathered at the court during the sentence hearing reportedly protested the sentence with boos and, “Freedom for Daniela” shouts before they were escorted out of the courtroom. Counter Extremism Project senior director Hans-Jakob Schindler told the BBC that Daniela Klette has become “a kind of grandmother heroine for the extreme left in Berlin.”
Both Die Welt and Deutsche Welle noted that Daniela Klette could face another trial after federal prosecutors brought attempted murder charges against her earlier this year for actions allegedly committed by Klette during her tenure at RAF. Although any terrorism charges related to her past RAF membership are reportedly past the statute of limitations, prosecutors seek to formally accuse her over her alleged complicity in three attacks committed by the far-left group between 1990 and 1993.
At the time of her arrest in 2024, German investigators reportedly found multiple weapons, ammunition, a replica anti-tank weapon, forged identity documents, wigs, gold, and 240,000 euros in cash at Klette’s apartment. Deutsche Welle detailed that kettle appear to have live a “normal social life” during the years she spent hiding n plain sight in Berlin, and even took vacations abroad and shared her apartment with a Brazilian man who reportedly affirmed that he had no idea of her true identity until after she was arrested.
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