Ex-member of Germany Red Army Faction arrested after decades of hiding

Former Red Army Faction member arrested in Berlin after 30 years on the run for robberies.

A former member of the disbanded left-wing militant Red Army Faction group who is accused of participating in a string of robberies has been arrested after more than 30 years on the run, German authorities said on February 27.

Daniela Klette, 65, was arrested at an apartment in Berlin on Monday afternoon. Investigators said they were led to her by a tip they received in November from the public, but wouldn't give details.

Klette, who had a foreign passport under a different name, put up no resistance, the head of Lower Saxony state's criminal police office, Friedo de Vries, told reporters. She was identified with the help of fingerprints. A search of the apartment later turned up two magazines and ammunition that would fit a handgun but no weapon, Mr. de Vries said.

Klette is one of three former Red Army Faction members whom police have been seeking for years. She, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg have been linked to 12 robberies in northern Germany between 1999 and 2016, as well as attempted murder.

Authorities suspect the motive for the robberies was to finance their lives underground rather than anything political.

Mr. De Vries said there was a second arrest on Tuesday, but the man's identity remains unclear.

Klette was taken to the northern town of Verden, where a judge ordered her kept in custody pending a possible indictment over six robberies between 1999 and 2016 — most of them at the end of that period.