German desperado goes on trial after 30 years

Wanted RAF member was caught by facial recognition

After decades on the run, Germany’s Daniela Klette is about to go on trial. Wanted in connection with dozens of armed crimes, she was a member of the extreme left-wing group RAF. She was arrested quietly at home last year after being located using facial recognition software, likely from images taken at a capoeira club. She had been living under various Italian names for 30 years. Police found gold bars, numerous weapons, a fake grenade and €240,000 in cash in her apartment.

West German far-left militant group

The RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion or Red Army Faction in English) was a West German far-left militant group active between 1970 and 1988. It defined itself as communist and anti-imperialist. It engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies, and shootouts with police over the course of three decades.

Klette, now 66, is wanted specifically for a more recent series of armed robberies with two other accomplices that are still on the run. In true desperado-style, she managed to warn one of the other suspects about her arrest – giving him time to flee the caravan in which he was living in Berlin.

(Michael Leahy. Source: Südwest Presse et al. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Uli Deck)