German court paroles former RAF terrorist Mohnhaupt (1st Lead)

Feb 12, 2007, 10:31 GMT

Stuttgart, Germany - 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.

Her campaign of kidnappings and assassinations 30 years ago created one of Germany's worst political crises of the 1970s.

Conservative Germans had voiced anger in recent weeks that prosecutors were calling for her punishment to be commuted, especially as she has never explicitly apologized for her crimes.

But the state superior court in Stuttgart ordered that she be freed from jail on March 27, saying, '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 was serving a life term for her part in murdering Hanns-Martin Schleyer, head of the German employers' federation, Siegfried Buback, federal prosecutor general, and Juergen Ponto, chief executive of Dresdner Bank. All those took place in 1977.

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.

A founder member of the RAF, Mohnhaupt rose to its collective leadership in 1977 after most of its original leaders committed suicide in jail. She was not captured until 1982.

At a parole hearing in Stuttgart last month, prosecutors said their considered view was that she was no longer likely to resume her terrorist ways as she did after being detained between 1972 and 1977.