German Police Defuse Grenade Found in Red Army Faction Suspect's Home

German police officers guard a building where Daniela Klette, a 65-year-old alleged member of Germany's notorious Red Army Faction (RAF) militant group, has been arrested after decades on the run from armed robbery and attempted murder charges, in Berlin, Germany, February 28, 2024 - Reuters
German police officers guard a building where Daniela Klette, a 65-year-old alleged member of Germany's notorious Red Army Faction (RAF) militant group, has been arrested after decades on the run from armed robbery and attempted murder charges, in Berlin, Germany, February 28, 2024 - Reuters
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German Police Defuse Grenade Found in Red Army Faction Suspect's Home

German police officers guard a building where Daniela Klette, a 65-year-old alleged member of Germany's notorious Red Army Faction (RAF) militant group, has been arrested after decades on the run from armed robbery and attempted murder charges, in Berlin, Germany, February 28, 2024 - Reuters
German police officers guard a building where Daniela Klette, a 65-year-old alleged member of Germany's notorious Red Army Faction (RAF) militant group, has been arrested after decades on the run from armed robbery and attempted murder charges, in Berlin, Germany, February 28, 2024 - Reuters

The Berlin apartment block in which a suspected Red Army Faction (RAF) militant lived during three decades on the run had to be evacuated on Wednesday after authorities found a grenade in her apartment, police said.

Daniela Klette, 65, and two other suspects are alleged to have belonged to the third generation of the leftist militant group which from the early 1970s committed a string of murders and kidnappings of government officials, US soldiers and German diplomats, originally in protest against the Vietnam war.

"Our specialists have so far removed one grenade from the flat on Sebastianstrasse in (Berlin's) Kreuzberg and defused it in a safe place," police wrote on social media. "Other objects are still being examined."

It was unclear if a person detained on Tuesday and released the following morning was linked to the two remaining suspects: Burkhard Garweg, 55, and Ernst-Volker Staub, 69, who have also been at large for 30 years. Authorities declined to comment on media reports of a third arrest on Wednesday, according to AFP.

The charges against the three relate not to the militant group's political crimes but to bank robberies and at least one attempted murder committed between 1991 and 2016 to finance their life underground.

It remained unclear where Klette, now in custody in the northern city of Bremen after her arrest in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, hid out over the past three decades, though newspaper Die Welt published footage appearing to show her dancing at a Berlin carnival in 2011.



Grossi Wants to Meet with Iran’s Pezeshkian ‘at Earliest Convenience’

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
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Grossi Wants to Meet with Iran’s Pezeshkian ‘at Earliest Convenience’

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi announced he intends to visit Tehran through a letter he addressed to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iranian Mehr Agency reported that Grossi sent a congratulatory message to the Iranian president-elect, which stated: “I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to you on your election win as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“Cooperation between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been at the focal attention of the international circles for many years. I am confident that, together, we will be able to make decisive progress on this crucial matter.”

“To that effect, I wish to express my readiness to travel to Iran to meet with you at the earliest convenience,” Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted Grossi as saying.

The meeting – should it take place - will be the first for Pezeshkian, who had pledged during his election campaign to be open to the West to resolve outstanding issues through dialogue.

Last week, American and Israeli officials told the Axios news site that Washington sent a secret warning to Tehran last month regarding its fears of Iranian research and development activities that might be used to produce nuclear weapons.

In May, Grossi expressed his dissatisfaction with the course of the talks he held over two days in Iran in an effort to resolve outstanding matters.

Since the death of the former Iranian president, Ibrahim Raisi, the IAEA chief refrained from raising the Iranian nuclear file, while European sources said that Tehran had asked to “freeze discussions” until the internal situation was arranged and a new president was elected.