A German court on Monday ordered the release of a former leader of the Red Army Faction, the Marxist group that terrorized West German industrialists, bankers and politicians, as well as U.S. military officials, in the 1970s and 1980s. Christian Klar, 56, will be freed on parole in January after serving 26 years for murdering nine people and attempting to kill 11 others, according to a decision handed down by a panel of judges in Stuttgart.
Only one other member of the Red Army Faction remains behind bars, as German judicial authorities have gradually allowed several convicted murderers from the group to rejoin a society they once swore to tear apart.
In August 2007, Eva Haule, 53, was released after serving 21 years for the 1985 murder of a U.S. soldier, Spec. Edward Pimental, and other crimes. Pimental, 20, was shot after he left a dance club in the city of Wiesbaden. RAF members later used his military identification to drive a bomb-laden Volkswagen past a checkpoint at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt. Two Americans, Airman 1st Class Frank Scarton and Becky Jo Bristol, a civilian employee, were killed when the bomb exploded outside the base headquarters.
In March 2007, German officials paroled Brigitte Mohnhaupt, now 58, another leader of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group. Among other crimes, she and Klar organized a 1981 rocket attack in Heidelberg that nearly killed Army Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, who was then commander of U.S. forces in Europe, and his wife.
Unlike some RAF members, Klar has never apologized or expressed remorse for his crimes, stirring a public controversy in Germany over whether he ought to be freed. In January 2007, he wrote a rambling letter to a conference of left-wing political groups in Berlin, urging them to "complete the defeat of the plans of capitalism."