Rehabilitated?

Christian Klar, formerly a leading member of the terrorist Red Army Faction, has cast doubts on his own rehabilitation during 25 years in prison with a statement he wrote which appears to mirror the views of the group primarily active in the 1970s and 80s.

In a statement Klar wrote in January for a Marxist conference held in Berlin, according to German public television, he expressed hopes that the time was ripe to "complete the defeat of capital and open the door to a new future."

He went on to denounce an "imperial alliance" in Europe, which "allows itself to castigate from on high any country on earth which opposes being reformed for today's redistribution of profits and turns its entire societal being into a pile of rubble."

According to the television report, Klar's statement was read to the conference attendees by a former far-left parliamentarian who has been accused of ties with the former East German secret police, the Stasi.

The development has raised concerns that Klar, who has petitioned German President Horst Köhler for a pardon, may not have renounced the views that led him to become a top figure in the Red Army Faction (RAF), and have led some to call for a possible pardon to be reconsidered.

Leading RAF figure

Klar, 54, has been described as the "cold implementer" of the RAF, a German terrorist group based on the so-called "urban guerrillas," that was responsible for the deaths of 34 people in its decades-long existence. The group, many of whose members were educated and from the middle or upper classes, claimed to be fighting the "imperialism" of the United States and German society, which they said was still tainted by the Nazi past.

Klar was arrested in 1982 and convicted of 20 counts of murder and attempted murder; he was sentenced to life in prison in 1985.

Speculation that Klar will be released early has been spurred by evidence that he has shown remorse.

"I understand the feelings of the victims and regret the suffering of these people," Klar wrote to the then German president Johannes Rau in 2003, said Der Spiegel newsmagazine. The letter forms part of a 130-page report drafted for Köhler.

Unwise move

Helmut Kury, a criminologist who has been heavily involved in the pardon request, said he was surprised by Klar's statement and that most citizens would conclude that Klar had not learned anything during his incarceration.

"He didn't do himself any favors," he told the television program, adding that the statement's text ran parallel with the thinking once prevalent in the RAF. "However, you can't conclude that he is liable to commit the same acts he did back then."

Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber said the statement put the entire matter of a pardon in question.

"After this call to arms against our basic values, the question is whether or not a life sentence for Christian Klar means that he belongs under lock and key permanently," he said.

A spokesperson for Köhler, whose decision on a pardon is expected in the next few months, did not comment on Klar's statement.