The prison conditions for former RAF terrorist Daniela Klette in the Vechta women’s prison in Lower Saxony have been relaxed, according to her lawyer. The 65-year-old will no longer be separated from other prisoners, her lawyer Lukas Theune confirmed on Friday in a report by “Spiegel”. “She is now allowed to have contact with other prisoners on remand, but not with prisoners,” the Theune told the German Press Agency.
Because Klette is no longer considered to be at risk of suicide, her cell in the Vechta correctional facility is no longer monitored by video and she is now allowed to have a ballpoint pen, according to the “Spiegel” report, which was confirmed by the lawyer. She hasn’t been allowed to do this so far because, according to the prison management, she could have injured herself. “In her new cell, she no longer has perforated metal panels in front of the window that would deprive her of daylight,” Theune is quoted as saying. At the end of March, he criticized his client’s prison conditions and said she would be completely isolated.
Since her arrest in Berlin, Klette has lived in prison, isolated from other prisoners. At the beginning of April, an investigating judge decided that video surveillance of the cell was also permissible. Klette was separated from other prisoners, but there were other opportunities for conversation and she was not isolated, the court said at the time. The Ministry of Justice stated that the prison had come to the conclusion that there was an increased risk of absconding – which the court confirmed.
Klette is accused of attempted murder, bomb attacks and robberies involving the use of firearms. Like her accomplices Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub, who are still being searched for, she belonged to the so-called third generation of the left-wing extremist RAF. In 1998 the RAF, which had carried out numerous attacks and killed people until 1991, declared itself dissolved.
