A suspected member of the left-wing Red Army Faction arrested in East Germany is wanted for killing three U.S. servicemen in 1985, West German authorities said Saturday.
Sigrid Sternebeck was captured near the city of Frankfurt-on-Oder on the Polish border Friday, East German Interior Minister Peter-Michael Diestel announced.It was the latest in a wave of arrests of RAF suspects who had spent years living in East Germany with the complicity of the former Communist government. Other active members of the group remain at large.
In Karlsruhe, West Germany, a spokesman for State Prosecutor Alexander von Stahl said Sternebeck, 40, was wanted for killing U.S. soldier Edward Pimental in Wiesbaden Aug. 8, 1985, and West Germany would seek her extradition immediately.
Pimental was killed for his identity card. Police say Sternebeck and an RAF guerrilla unit used it later the same day to gain access to the U.S. Rhein-Main airbase outside Frankfurt.
The group then planted a 130-pound car bomb that exploded, killing two U.S. servicemen, police say.
Diestel praised the sixth Red Army Faction guerrilla arrest in 11 days as a prime example of successful cooperation between authorities in the two Germanys.
Four Red Army Faction suspects were arrested near Frankfurt-on-Oder and Cottbus on Thursday. One was later freed for lack of evidence. Two others, Susanne Albrecht and Inge Viett, were captured earlier.
In an embarrassing admission late Friday, East Germany retracted a claim that it had arrested Horst and Barbara Meyer, the couple at the top of the Red Army Faction wanted list.
An earlier report said Leipzig police detained the Meyers and fellow suspect Sabine Elke-Callsen after a citizen identified them from a West German wanted poster distributed in the East. But fingerprint checks proved it was a mistake.
The Meyers, a couple in their mid-30s, are believed to have taken over leadership of the RAF's hard core sometime in the 1980s.