The police searched rooms in Berlin with a large contingent – in the hope of finding the ex-RAF terrorists. Ten people have now been arrested. But those they are looking for remain missing.
In the search for the two fugitive ex-RAF terrorists Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, the emergency services have temporarily arrested ten people. The identity of the people was determined, as the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office (LKA) announced. Those affected did not offer any resistance. “All people have already been released after the identity verification measures have been completed,” it said.
According to the information, the former RAF terrorists Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg were not among the people arrested. The search for them is ongoing. There had previously been talk of five arrests. The extent to which they are connected to the RAF manhunt is the subject of the investigation, said a spokeswoman for the LKA Lower Saxony.
Gunshot noises “related to door opening”
The operation began around 7:30 a.m. in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain, in an industrial area on the corner of Markgrafendamm and Persiusstrasse. The Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office is in charge of the search. The Federal Criminal Police Office and the Berlin police were also involved. A total of around 130, some heavily armed, forces were deployed, including a special operations team.
According to the LKA, the sounds of gunfire were also noticeable during the searches. “These are related to a door opening.” No one was injured.
Trio is said to have committed robberies
The LKA had recently significantly intensified the search for the wanted former RAF members Garweg and Staub. The background is the arrest of the suspected RAF terrorist Daniela Klette last Monday in Berlin. Garweg, Staub and Klette are said to have carried out armed robberies together, including on cash transports, in order to finance their underground life of more than 30 years. New mugshots were only published on Saturday, which are most likely to show Burkhard Garweg.
The investigators assume that the two wanted men could also be in Berlin. Klette, who was wanted on six arrest warrants, was arrested in her apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg and was taken into custody after being identified by fingerprints. The now 65-year-old woman is said to have lived unrecognized in Berlin for years.
Members of the third generation RAF
All three are said to belong to the third generation of the former left-wing extremist terrorist organization Red Army Faction. During their active time, the then Deutsche Bank boss Alfred Herrhausen (1989) and Treuhand boss Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (1991) were murdered and Herrhausen’s driver was seriously injured.
For decades, the RAF was the epitome of terror and murder in the west of still divided Germany. In 1998 it declared itself dissolved. Burdock, Staub and Garweg are also wanted for a series of later cash-in-transit robberies.
Raphael Knop, RBB, tagesschau, March 3, 2024 12:54 p.m