Carlos the Jackal's Accomplice on Trial in Germany
October 19, 2000 - 0:0
FRANKFURT An accomplice of jailed guerrilla Carlos the Jackal in the 1975 kidnapping of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna went on trial in Germany on Tuesday on murder charges.
Hans-Joachim Klein was extradited from France last year, 23 years after German authorities first sought him on suspicion of kidnapping and involvement in the killing of three people in the hostage-taking.
The hostage raid, in which two bodyguards and a delegate died, was the most spectacular attack by the Venezuelan-born Carlos the Jackal, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
On Tuesday, a handcuffed Klein, 52, wore a gray jacket and had slightly unkempt, and partially gray hair.
The Frankfurt State Court is expected to hear evidence from 78 witnesses in the coming months, including from former hostages and OPEC officials.
Klein was shot and seriously injured in the stomach during the kidnapping, but was treated and allowed to fly to Algiers with his accomplices and their hostages. He later took refuge in Libya before going underground.
Two years later he split from Carlos and, in a dramatic gesture, mailed his pistol to Germany's Der Spiegel magazine together with a list of terrorist operations planned by Carlos. Klein repudiated his own actions in a book published in 1979 entitled "Return to Humanity" in which he described Carlos as a "megalomaniac murderer".
Living under a false name, Klein moved from country to country and finally settled in France where he worked as a journalist under the pseudonym of Dirk Claussen.
He was tracked down and finally arrested in 1998 in a bistro in a Normandy village where he had lived for five years. Germany applied for his extradition a week later.
Last year, in an interview with Spiegel, Klein denied having fired any shots in the hostage raid. "I just cannot feel guilty for these murders," he said.
Carlos was spirited from Sudan to Paris by French secret agents in 1994. He was jailed for life in 1997 for the 1975 murder of two French secret agents in Paris.
A verdict in the Klein case is not expected before late December.
(Reuter)
Hans-Joachim Klein was extradited from France last year, 23 years after German authorities first sought him on suspicion of kidnapping and involvement in the killing of three people in the hostage-taking.
The hostage raid, in which two bodyguards and a delegate died, was the most spectacular attack by the Venezuelan-born Carlos the Jackal, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
On Tuesday, a handcuffed Klein, 52, wore a gray jacket and had slightly unkempt, and partially gray hair.
The Frankfurt State Court is expected to hear evidence from 78 witnesses in the coming months, including from former hostages and OPEC officials.
Klein was shot and seriously injured in the stomach during the kidnapping, but was treated and allowed to fly to Algiers with his accomplices and their hostages. He later took refuge in Libya before going underground.
Two years later he split from Carlos and, in a dramatic gesture, mailed his pistol to Germany's Der Spiegel magazine together with a list of terrorist operations planned by Carlos. Klein repudiated his own actions in a book published in 1979 entitled "Return to Humanity" in which he described Carlos as a "megalomaniac murderer".
Living under a false name, Klein moved from country to country and finally settled in France where he worked as a journalist under the pseudonym of Dirk Claussen.
He was tracked down and finally arrested in 1998 in a bistro in a Normandy village where he had lived for five years. Germany applied for his extradition a week later.
Last year, in an interview with Spiegel, Klein denied having fired any shots in the hostage raid. "I just cannot feel guilty for these murders," he said.
Carlos was spirited from Sudan to Paris by French secret agents in 1994. He was jailed for life in 1997 for the 1975 murder of two French secret agents in Paris.
A verdict in the Klein case is not expected before late December.
(Reuter)