Germany paroles last member of Red Army Faction terror group

Jun 10, 2011, 16:56 GMT

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Frankfurt (dpa) - Germany on Friday announced parole for the last member of a former far-left terrorist gang who is still serving jail time.

Birgit Hogefeld, 54, a former senior Red Army Faction (RAF) leader, will be let go next week, 18 years after she was nabbed in a 1993 gunfight with detectives.

She has been serving life for murdering a US serviceman, being in a terrorist group and mounting a 1985 bomb attack on a US Air Force base in Frankfurt that killed two people.

A Frankfurt court granted her parole application.

Hogefeld led the third generation of the RAF, which began in 1970 as the Baader-Meinhof gang, led by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, staging bombings, hijackings, assassinations and bank robberies in a vain attempt to trigger an anti-capitalist uprising.

Germany has gradually released all the ex-members of the RAF, which declared itself dissolved after Hogefeld's capture.

Since serving out less-than-life sentences or being paroled, none of the middle-aged former urban guerrillas have shown any sign of wanting to restart their war, though an apparent vow of silence has held many back from disclosing what they did during their crime spree.

One other former RAF member is currently on trial and faces possible future prison time if she is convicted.

Officials said Hogefeld had been regularly released from jail in the daytime since 2009 under a resocialization programme.

She said in 1996 she was sorry for the violence, and the court statement said she had told the judges she 'no longer supports the RAF and accepts her personal responsibility for crimes by the RAF.'

Germany usually paroles people with life sentences after 15 years, but Hogefeld had to serve 18 years because of a rider against early parole on her sentence.

She obtained a master's degree by correspondence from a German university four years ago and has been doing research for a doctoral degree since, prison officials said.