A member of Germany’s Baader-Meinhof gang, one of the left-wing guerrilla groups that killed scores of people across Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, has been arrested after more than 30 years on the run.
Daniela Klette, 65, who was detained in Berlin on Monday, is accused of attempted murder and other crimes committed after the group disbanded.
Here is a brief history of the German militants and other groups in Europe that violently opposed capitalism.
Germany’s Red Army Faction
The Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang after founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, carried out kidnappings and murders of prominent figures in West Germany in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The outfit, founded in 1970, said it was fighting an oppressive capitalist state and US imperialism.
Its most high-profile victim was Hanns Martin Schleyer, head of the German employers’ federation, who was kidnapped and shot dead in 1977.
Around the same time four militants of the RAF-allied Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked Mallorca-Frankfurt flight LH 181, demanding the release of 11 RAF members.
During a five-day odyssey which included seven refuelling stops in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the pilot was shot dead.
German anti-terror commandos stormed the jet in Somalia, shot and killed three of the Palestinian hijackers and freed 90 hostages.
Members of the group also assassinated diplomat Gerold von Braunmuehl in 1986, and Deutsche Bank chairman, Alfred Herrhausen, in 1989.
Believed to have killed a total of 34 people, the group abandoned violence in 1992 and formally disbanded in 1998.
Greece’s November 17
Greece’s deadliest left-wing extremist group, November 17, was named after the date of a 1973 student uprising crushed by the military dictatorship then in power.
Emerging in 1975, the group killed 23 people – including a CIA station chief, US army staff, Greek police, business executives and a British defence attache – before being broken up in 2002.
Italy’s Red Brigades
The Red Brigades were a radical Marxist organisation responsible for attacks between 1969 and 1980, dubbed Italy’s “Years of Lead”.
Founded by sociologist Renato Curcio, the group killed or wounded dozens of magistrates, politicians, journalists and industrialists.
Their most notorious act was the kidnapping and assassination of former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978.
Several former Red Brigades members fled to France and their fate has been a sticking point between the two countries.
Italy said they must serve sentences dating back decades but in March 2023 France’s top court ruled out extraditing them.
France’s Action Directe
The Marxist Action Directe group carried out attacks in France in the 1980s, including the abduction and murder of Georges Besse, head of the state car manufacturer Renault, in 1986.
Founded in 1979, it targeted executives and political and business buildings. In the early years, the attacks chiefly caused damage to property, but between 1983 and 1986 the group killed three police officers.
It disbanded in 1987 after the arrest of four members.
Spain’s Grapo
Grapo, which stands for First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Group, was founded in 1975 a few months before the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
A Marxist organisation which Spanish authorities blame for some 80 killings between 1975 and 2003, it targeted temporary-hire agencies in the belief they were creations of capitalist exploitation.
One of its deadliest attacks left eight dead in a Madrid restaurant in 1979. It also staged kidnappings.
In 2007 Spain announced it had dismantled the “last operational commando” after the arrest of six members in Barcelona.
Source: AFP