RIGHTS: Germans Struggle to Resolve Justice Issues

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

BERLIN, May 4 2007 (IPS) - Thirty years after the German’s chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback was assassinated by left-wing terrorists, a debate has re-surfaced over what should be the appropriate punishment for a convicted killer – and whether politically motivated crimes deserve exceptionally harsh punishment.

On April 7, 1977, Buback, his driver and bodyguard were shot as their car was ambushed by two members of the so-called Red Army Faction (RAF), the urban guerrilla group formed by former students of the 1968 protest movement that was responsible for 34 deaths and many injuries in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Buback assassination is considered in Germany as the climax of the so-called ‘years of lead’, in the late 1970s, when the RAF escalated its urban guerrilla war against the country’s political and economic institutions.

At the time, the hysteria that accompanied the wave of killings led many German politicians, police and the right-wing media to call for the re-introduction of the death penalty which had been abolished in the 1949 constitution adopted after the end of World War II. The cry was often “to hunt the terrorists down to their graves”.

Memories of the heated debate over the appropriate punishment for terrorists have now re-surfaced after Christian Klar, the only RAF member still in prison, requested clemency. Klar was found guilty of participating in the Buback killing along with three other RAF members – Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Knut Folters and Guenter Sonnenberg.

Separate trials were held for these. Klar was also convicted of other terrorist offences.

At his trial 25 years ago, Klar received a maximum life sentence. In Germany this means at least 20 years in prison. Depending on the prisoner’s behaviour, this sentence can be prolonged to 27 years, after which a release is mandatory.

In a request to German President Horst Koehler, Klar asked for a two-year reduction of his prison term that could continue until 2009. Koehler has yet to make a decision.

But in an effort to keep Klar behind bars to the very end of the maximum 27-year term, right-wing politicians and media, relatives of the RAF victims and even church authorities have joined together to criticise Klar’s request for clemency as “shameless”.

In an open letter of protest addressed to Koehler, Sigrun Schmid, widow of a police officer killed by the RAF in 1971, recently wrote: “I cannot believe that you are seriously considering releasing Klar from prison. Up to now, he has never shown any repentance for his crimes, and you, Mr President, are thinking of pardoning a merciless man?”

Commenting critically also on Klar’s request, Ernst Freiherr von Castell, legal counsellor at the Catholic diocese of Augsburg, in the south of the country, said in a radio interview that “clemency presupposes repentance and truthfulness” from the criminal’s side.

“I believe that having served out a sentence is not enough, the criminal must be ready to start a new life again,” von Castell said.

Even stronger views have come from Guenther Beckstein, minister of the interior of the federal state of Bavaria, a well-known conservative politician and member of the Christian Social Union party. A criminal like Klar “belongs behind bars”, he has said, adding: “It is my view of justice that a criminal who does not confess is undeserving of clemency.”

Beckstein is also against any relaxation in Klar’s prison regime and temporary visits outside the prison gates to prepare him for his eventual release.

The swirling controversy over Klar and his punishment has been complicated by sensational revelations suggesting that he may not have been as involved in Buback’s assassination as the prosecution argued at his trial. According to secret confessions by ex-RAF members, Klar was not “immediately present” when Buback was shot.

German police have now admitted that they have known of these confessions for years. But they were kept secret to protect their informants from other former RAF members.

Ex-RAF police informants have also reportedly said that Folters, one of the four found guilty of participating in Buback’s assassination, was not even in Germany at the time. He was said to have been staying in Amsterdam. Folters was also sentenced to life imprisonment for other terrorist offences.

The information and the failure of the authorities to act on it, together with the current debate over whether to release Klar or not, throw into question once again the official German assertions that the RAF terrorists were treated like any other criminals. A special, high-security prison wing was built to hold some of them and they were kept in isolation.

In November 1974 Holger Meins died during one of the hunger strikes organised by RAF members to protest against their conditions in prison.

In 1976 Ulrike Meinhof was found dead hanged in her cell, apparently after committing suicide.

On October 13, 1977 German special forces stormed a hijacked Lufthansa passenger plane which had landed in Mogadishu, shooting the four Arab hijackers who were demanding the release of 11 RAF terrorists held in the Stammheim prison. Three hijackers died on the spot. All the passengers were released without serious injury.

The next day in Stammheim, Andreas Baader was found dead in his cell with a gunshot wound. Gudrun Ensslin was found hanged in her cell. Jan-Carl Raspe died in hospital the following day from a gunshot wound. A fourth RAF member, Irmgard Moeller survived with four stab wounds in her chest.

The official version is the three committed suicide. But Moeller has claimed these were extra-judicial killings in answer to the hijacker’s demands for their release.