German Red Army Faction wanted to kidnap Lagerfeld
from yahoo
By Madeline Chambers Mon Apr 23, 9:04 AM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's militant Red Army Faction considered kidnapping fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in the 1970s, said a former member of the radical left-wing group that shook the West German establishment.
The comments from Peter-Juergen Boock, who has served 17 years in jail for his role in the RAF, are the latest in a string of revelations which have caused a storm in Germany.
Some of his comments have sparked calls for a re-examination of the 1977 murder of a federal prosecutor.
Boock told Der Spiegel magazine the RAF had a list of possible targets for ransom in the late 1970s when it was trying to raise funds to help the group's leaders escape from jail.
Lagerfeld was from a rich family and was already a big name in the fashion world, so seemed an ideal candidate.
"We considered kidnapping the owner of the lingerie maker Palmers factory and also Karl Lagerfeld," Boock told Der Spiegel in an interview. "There were a row of people whom we collected material about and they were all wealthy."
He did not say why the plan never came to fruition.
The RAF is suspected of killing 34 people, many of them high-profile establishment figures, between 1970 and 1991. Memories of the period, when their activities shook West Germany to the core, live on.
Also known as the "Baader-Meinhof Gang" after founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the RAF grew from the student protest and anti-Vietnam war movements in the late 1960s.
The RAF killed many of its victims immediately and never released anyone in exchange for money, although they did demand a ransom for one of their highest-profile victims, industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer.
Other victims who were assassinated include Deutsche Bank chief Alfred Herrhausen and Siemens board member Karl Heinz Beckurts.
Boock's interview has aroused passions in Germany as he says Christian Klar, convicted for the 1977 murder of federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback, was not guilty, prompting calls for a re-opening of the case.
The report complicates President Horst Koehler's sensitive deliberations on whether to pardon Klar.
Der Spiegel also reported that another former RAF member had told German authorities another member shot Buback.
Many Germans are angry the authorities may have known since the mid-1980s that another RAF militant, Stefan Wisniewski, freed from jail in 1999, fired the fatal shots into Buback.
"This must be cleared up and the security authorities and prosecutors must say what witness statements they knew about, what they did and why," Greens lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele told Bavarian radio.
Other commentators, however, say Boock's comments are no more than hearsay.
A Justice Ministry spokeswoman said prosecutors were examining the allegations but no decisions had been taken.
(Additional reporting by Klaus-Peter Senger)
