BERLIN, March 26 (UPI) -- A former leader of a left-wing terrorist group has been set free from a German jail after serving 24 years for a series of assassinations in the late 1970s.
The release of Brigitte Mohnhaupt, the leader of the anti-capitalist terror group Red Army Faction, or RAF, had been preceded by a controversial debate on whether some of the most dangerous Germans should be treated with mercy.
The 57-year-old, who left prison Sunday, was convicted for her role in nine murders the RAF orchestrated in the late 1970s that shocked Germany. She led the RAF during the 'German Autumn,' the period in 1977 considered to be the country's worst period of terror.
At the time, the RAF kidnapped industry leader Hanns-Martin Schleyer and executed him in a forest in Belgium after the plan to blackmail fellow terrorists out of jail failed. Other leaders killed under Mohnhaupt's watch were Deutsche Bank head Juergen Ponto and Siegfried Buback, Germany's top prosecutor.
In addition, the RAF killed 33 more people, among them police officers and chauffeurs. Mohnhaupt also helped to execute a rocket attack on U.S. Army General Frederick Kroesen, then the commander of the U.S. forces in Europe.
Last month, Mohnhaupt was paroled by a state superior court in Stuttgart on the grounds that she had served her minimum sentence and no longer posed a risk to society.
The families of the RAF victims have bitterly protested the release.
