While the actual offence and its preparation have long been time-barred, two left-wing radicals living in Venezuela are to stand trial for planning an explosives attack in Berlin. The limitation period runs until 2035.
Almost 30 years after a failed bomb attack on a prison in Berlin, the German Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office has filed charges against two men it wants to hold responsible for the offence. This was announced by the authorities in Karlsruhe on Tuesday. The Berlin Court of Appeal must now decide whether to admit the charges.
The two Germans Peter Krauth and Thomas Walter, 64 and 62 years old, are said to have formed an association called K.O.M.I.T.E.E. with another accomplice, who has since died, in autumn 1994 at the latest. This Berlin group was ‘characterised by a left-wing extremist ideology’ and had set itself the goal of ‘bringing about socio-political change through arson and explosive attacks on state institutions’.
K.O.M.I.T.E.E. is suspected of having carried out an arson attack on a Bundeswehr building in Bad Freienwalde 30 years ago, in which no one was injured. This resulted in property damage of DM 200,000.
A year later, the group allegedly attempted to blow up the deportation prison under construction in Berlin-Grünau. In preparation, the suspects are said to have prepared four propane gas cylinders containing a total of over 120 kilograms of explosive material with self-made time fuses. A police patrol had become aware of the barriers erected around the building site for this purpose. The perpetrators fled and the building remained intact. According to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), evidence was found in a vehicle left behind at the crime scene that was attributed to the three wanted men.
After decades in hiding, Bernhard Heidbreder, who died of cancer four years ago, was discovered in 2014 by German investigators in Venezuela and arrested with the help of the national police. The Supreme Court in Caracas rejected an extradition request because the accused offences were time-barred under Venezuelan law. Krauth was subsequently also detained in Venezuela on the basis of an Interpol search and released after four months on the same grounds.
All three then successfully applied to be recognised as political refugees in Venezuela. Walter provides information about life in the small town of Mérida on social media. His 90-year-old mother and sister visited him in November 2023. In the same month, the South America correspondent for the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ wrote a lengthy portrait of the exiles.
The actual act in Berlin-Grünau and its preparation were also time-barred in Germany after ten years. However, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office accuses Krauth and Walter of conspiring to cause an explosive detonation. The German limitation period for this offence is 40 years. Lawyers for the three wanted men took this as an opportunity to lodge a constitutional complaint against this. However, the Federal Constitutional Court did not accept this complaint for hearing.
It is not known whether the current indictment is intended to prepare a deal between the wanted persons and the German justice system. In 2001, they were already offered a speedier trial and four and a half years in prison if the three turned themselves in. In 2010, their envisaged sentence was reduced to three and a half years. Nevertheless, no one took up the offers.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Thomas Walter and Peter Krauth in political exile in Venezuela three years ago.
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