German police hunting for two former members of the left-wing Red Army Faction (RAF) terror group carried out several raids on Tuesday.
Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub, who have spent decades underground, are wanted in connection with a string of armed robberies in Germany.
A third former RAF member, Daniela Klette, was captured by police in Berlin in February and has since been charged by prosecutors.
Garweg 56, Staub, 70, and Daniela Klette, 66, have been under investigation for years for attempted murder as well as attempted and completed aggravated robbery.
Between 1999 and 2016, they allegedly robbed cash transporters and supermarkets, mainly in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, to finance their underground lives.
However, the crimes are not connected with any act of terrorism or political violence.
Police on Monday raided a flat in Berlin and questioned an individual in Frankfurt as part of the hunt for the fugitives, according to a spokesman for the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony, which is leading the search.
The spokesman stressed that the man was not himself under suspicion, but said that investigators confiscated "digital evidence" among other things during the searches, which is now being analysed.
Shortly after Klette's arrest, investigators also confiscated a construction trailer in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain, where Garweg is said to have lived under the alias Martin.
According to witnesses, Garweg is also said to have been in Hamburg, among other places, where he was allegedly spotted at the end of October.
The three belonged to the so-called third generation of the left-wing extremist Red Army Faction, which rose to global prominence in the 1970s with a series of attacks that shocked West Germany and triggered massive security operations.
The RAF, which killed more than 30 people, announced that it had disbanded in 1998.
- Germany
- Police
- RAF fugitives
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
