A German court on Monday approved parole for one of the last jailed members of the Red Army Faction in a case that has revived painful memories of the left-wing terrorist group's 1970s heyday.
Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, will be released March 27 after serving 24 years of a life sentence for multiple murders, the Stuttgart state court ruled.
Mohnhaupt was convicted in 1985 of involvement in nine murders, including those of West German chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback and of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the head of the country's industry federation.
She was given five life sentences on the murder charges and convictions on other counts. Those included attempted murder for her part in a 1981 rocket-propelled grenade attack on the car of US General Frederick Krosen -- then the commander of US forces in Europe -- which injured both the general and his wife.
The court decided Mohnhaupt fulfilled the conditions of her sentence and no longer posed a threat to society, court spokeswoman Josefine Koeblitz said.
The decision was made "according to legal conditions and was not an act of clemency," Koeblitz said.
She will be on five year's probation under a number of conditions, including reporting regularly to authorities.
Mohnhaupt was a leader in the Red Army Faction, once known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, which sought to combat what it saw as capitalist oppression of workers and US imperialism.
Active from 1970 -- when it grew out of student anti-Vietnam war protests -- until 1992, when it abandoned violence, the group formally disbanded in 1998.
The Red Army Faction carried out kidnappings, bank robberies and armed attacks on prominent government and business figures.
US military facilities and personnel in Germany were also targeted, and the group had ties to Palestinian radicals and to communist East Germany's secret police, the Stasi.
Over the decades, Red Army Faction members killed 34 people and injured hundreds of others. In addition to their prominent targets, victims included bystanders, police officers and chauffeurs.
Mohnhaupt was captured early in her involvement with the Red Army Faction in Berlin in 1972 and jailed for several years. Released in 1977, she immediately went back to the group and played a key role in the trail of death it left later that year, which became known as the "German Autumn."
She was finally captured by West German authorities on Nov. 11, 1982. Mohnhaupt had petitioned for her release in a bid for parole.
The head of Germany's police union noted that the terror group killed 10 officers. Konrad Freiberg said that "we will not forget these murders. A feeling of bitterness remains."
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