Becker trial conundrum

Verena Becker, now 59, was long considered one of Germany's most dangerous terrorists.

She was convicted once before on six counts of attempted murder and extortion. At the time she was 25, and reacted to the verdict with the words: "Nazi pigs! I do not accept your judgment!"

Becker served her sentence until 1989, when she was pardoned by then-German President Richard von Weiszäcker. The reason given for the pardon was that Becker had shown remorse and distanced herself from terrorism, cooperating with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

It is this closeness to the hated government that is now entangling Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Criminal Police Office, and Becker. For the last year-and-a-half, the ex-terrorist has again been on trial for a murder that occurred when she was active in the Red Army Faction, a murder that happened more than 30 years ago.

In cold blood

It was a quiet morning in Karlsruhe, a public holiday in April 1977, when all of a sudden a motorcycle pulled up next to an official government car. From the back seat of the motorcycle, a hooded person fired an automatic weapon through the window into the vehicle. All those in the car were killed, and the unknown assailants escaped.

The murder victims included - in addition to the two drivers - Germany's top attorney, Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback. The 57-year-old had just been in office for three years and had declared war on the Red Army Faction (RAF). Buback had planned to stop the extremists, who with their actions had brought Germany to the brink of a state of emergency.

Terror against Germany

The brutal series of kidnappings, bomb attacks and cold-blooded murders reached their high point in 1977. The terrorists were after senior representatives of state and society: lawyers, bankers and politicians, those who in the RAF ideology were holding back the possibility of a "just state without oppression and exploitation." The terrorists also wanted to show that the government was vulnerable. The futile struggle of the RAF lasted a total of 28 years.

In 1998, the RAF admitted in an official letter that their campaign had failed, and that it had come to an end. Up until that point, several generations of terrorists had committed 34 murders, including attacks on Deutsche Bank head Alfred Herrhausen, Dresdner Bank spokesman Jürgen Ponto, Buback, and Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, the president of the Treuhand agency, the trust charged with assimilating the East German economy into West Germany after unification.

Trial of the 'real culprits'

Despite extensive investigations, the details in many of the murder cases remain unclear and the perpetrators unidentified. Three terrorists were eventually convicted for the murder of Siegfried Buback in the early 1980s. With the judgments, it seemed one of the last chapters of the RAF had come to a close.

However, in April 2007 Michael Buback, the now 59-year-old son of the assassinated federal prosecutor, received credible information from an "informant" that the shooter who killed his father was not among the convicted terrorists.

The news left Buback, a chemistry professor at the University of Göttingen, shaken. He had always suspected that the shooter had not been properly identified. In his book "Der zweite Tod meines Vaters" ("The Second Death of My Father"), he tried to come to terms with the story from his perspective. He also raised serious allegations against the German intelligence services, which he said had covered up who the real culprits were.

A scandal, if true. Buback gathered together so much material that the attorney general could not help but to investigate and to bring new charges. Murder charges do not lapse under German criminal law, and so a new prime suspect was accused: Verena Becker.

An evil suspicion

One of Becker's hairs was found in the helmet worn by one of the assailants at the scene of the crime. In addition, there was a trace of her DNA on the envelope of the letter claiming responsibility for Siegfried Buback's murder. Evidence of involvement in the crime, but no clear evidence of murder. Why were these clues not pursued earlier?

As far back as the 1980s, Becker had begun working with Germany's intelligence service and had provided much information about the RAF - even the name of the alleged shooter.

Stefan Aust, an RAF expert and the author of "The Baader-Meinhof Complex," explained in an interview with DW why this information did not attract more attention. "The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution promised Verena Becker that the information she provided would be kept secret," he said. This was a condition for her cooperation.

Of course, no one would pass information to the intelligence service if everything were to be made public, Aust explained. But he believes that in this case, the role of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution can be criticized.

A cover-up?

For Michael Buback, the case was clear: Verena Becker, who he believes is the culprit, was protected by Germany's intelligence service in exchange for much of her information on the RAF.

As a co-plaintiff in the case, Buback requested last year to access the files of the intelligence agency. Upon his request, the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court called for constitutional protection for all files. When the files weren't released, Buback felt his suspicions were further confirmed: the state was covering up for a terrorist.

"This is utter nonsense. He is on the wrong track and has sunk his teeth into this idea," said Gisela Friedrichsen, an experienced court reporter for the news magazine "Der Spiegel" who followed the trial of Verena Becker. The trial was very fair, and Buback's many claims and requests were always met with much patience, Friedrichsen said in an interview with DW. In the end, Buback was granted access to the restricted files, though the documents did still contain some censored information. The files added nothing to what he already knew.

Toward the end of the trial, Becker again stated that she did not fire the weapon used to kill Buback's father. The attorney general also believes she is innocent. Another former terrorist has also confirmed that Becker was not directly involved in the murder.

No matter how the court decides on Friday, what will remain are the impressions left by the trial, said Friedrichsen.

"The RAF achieved nothing. When I look at these characters, these ex-terrorists, I see people who are lost," she said. "They not only inflicted terrible things on other people, they also ruined themselves."

Author: Wolfgang Dick / cmk
Editor: Gregg Benzow