Posted on 02/12/2007 1:58:25 PM PST by NormsRevenge
BERLIN - A court paroled a one-time leader of Germany's notorious Red Army Faction Monday after 24 years in prison, amid bitter memories of the left-wing terrorist group's attacks on law enforcement and business leaders, which plunged the country into fear three decades ago.
Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, is to leave prison March 27, the first day she becomes eligible for release, the Stuttgart state court ruled.
Her case has set off a public debate about whether it is time to show mercy to those who showed none to their victims and has made Germans relive a tense time when their country was still divided between a democratic West and a communist East.
A student at the University of Munich before going underground, Mohnhaupt was arrested in 1982 and convicted of involvement in nine murders, including those of West German chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback, Dresdner Bank head Juergen Ponto and Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the head of the country's industry federation.
She shot Ponto three times when he resisted a kidnapping attempt in Oberursel near Frankfurt in 1977, the court said. Other times, she was involved in planning killings and attacks.
She was given five life sentences for murder and other non-fatal attacks, including a 1981 rocket-propelled grenade assault on the car of U.S. Gen. Frederick Kroesen — then the commander of U.S. forces in Europe — which injured the general and his wife.
The Stuttgart court, supported by prosecutors, decided Mohnhaupt no longer posed a threat. The decision was made "according to legal conditions and was not an act of clemency," spokeswoman Josefine Koeblitz said.
Mohnhaupt, who has a job offer and an apartment lined up in a place the court did not disclose, will be on supervised parole for five years and must report regularly to authorities. Combined with an earlier prison term, she has spent 29 years behind bars.
The court's written decision noted that Mohnhaupt was not willing to completely repudiate her violent past and that she "has not distanced herself from her deeds in the sense of insight into wrongs that were committed."
But the court reported that Mohnhaupt said at her closed parole hearing that the time for "armed struggle" was over and acknowledged inflicting suffering on the victim's families.
Mohnhaupt was a top figure in what was sometimes called the Baader-Meinhof gang, after an earlier generation of leaders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof.
The middle-class leftists, styling themselves as "urban guerrillas" after Latin American radicals, emerged from German student protests against the Vietnam War, launching a violent, 22-year campaign against what they considered U.S. imperialism and capitalist oppression of workers.
At its peak, West Germany was shaken by the Sept. 5, 1977, kidnapping of employers' federation head Schleyer in an attempt to exort the release of Baader and others from prison.
The demands were underscored by the release of chilling pictures of Schleyer in captivity, the day's date on a sign around his neck.
When the West German government of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt did not free Baader, Arab supporters hijacked a Lufthansa jet to Mogadishu, Somalia. German commandos freed the hostages, and the kidnappers killed Schleyer, whose body was found in the trunk of a car in Mulhouse, France. Baader and two other Red Army Faction members killed themselves in prison.
Before abandoning violence in 1992, the organization killed 34 people and injured hundreds. The group disbanded in 1998, a decision Mohnhaupt said she agreed with.
The head of Germany's police union criticized the parole decision.
"RAF terrorists killed 10 police officers, among them a Dutch colleague," said union head Konrad Freiberg.
"Although the release follows the law books, and the decision of the judge must be accepted, we will not forget these murders. A feeling of bitterness remains."
Former Justice Minister Klaus Kinkel, said it was time "to give Mohnhaupt a chance to return to society."
Although repentance was not necessary for release, Kinkel said, such an expression from her "would be tremendously desirable."
This undated file photo released by police shows German terrorist Brigitte Mohnhaupt. A German court approved parole Monday, Feb. 12, 2007 for convicted terrorist Brigitte Mohnhaupt, one of the last jailed members of the leftist Red Army Faction. Mohnhaupt, 57, may be released in late March after serving 24 years of a life sentence for multiple murders, the Stuttgart state court ruled. (AP Photo/Police, File)
This woman needed then, and deserves to this day a quick bullet to the head. That the German legal system would even consider releasing her is a betrayal of their trust to their own people. Our nation should seek her extradiction for the attack on our General and give her another fifty years with no possibility for parole for that crime.
What a travesty...what a crock.
The leftist media's heroes are the world's despots, criminals and terrorists.
Coincidence?
I think not.
With the enemies she's made, she will be less safe out of prison, hopefully... A silver lining.
I realize the court deserves it's whacks as well, but just wait for the inevitable interviews and how they are played up and to whose benefit.
She'll be teaching in the American University system within a year.
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