Knut Detlef Folkerts (born 1 January 1952 in

Singen Singen (; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Singe'') is an industrial city in the very south of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany and just north of the German-Swiss border. Location Singen is an industrial city situated in the far sout ...

, West Germany) is a former member of the terrorist group

Red Army Faction The Red Army Faction (, ; RAF ),See the section "Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang ( ), was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998, considered a terrorist organisat ...

(RAF). In 1977 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the Netherlands for murder. Later he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in West Germany for crimes including the murder of public prosecutor

Siegfried Buback Siegfried Buback (3 January 1920, Wilsdruff, Saxony – 7 April 1977, Karlsruhe) was the Attorney General of West Germany from 1974 until his murder in 1977. Life and career Buback studied at the University of Leipzig. From 1940 to 1945, he ...

: however he was then released from prison in 1995 when doubts were raised about the reliability of the original conviction in Germany.

Time with the RAF and arrest

Folkerts was sentenced in a

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

court together with Willy-Peter Stoll for the robbery of a firearms business on 1 July 1977. In an interview in 2007 he denied any involvement.Spiegel Online: "Ex-Terroristen entlasten Klar und Folkerts als Buback-Mörder"
(21. April 2007) On 22 September 1977 Folkerts and Elisabeth von Dyck set out to return a car to a Dutch car rental business in

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

. The car had been rented by Sigrid Sternebeck and used in connection with the kidnapping and murder of

Hanns Martin Schleyer Hans "Hanns" Martin Schleyer (; 1 May 1915 – 18 October 1977) was a German business executive, employer and industry representative, Schutzstaffel, Nazi SS officer, and Lobbying, lobbyist. He served as president of two powerful commercial org ...

. The surroundings were under surveillance and the police tried to arrest Folkerts. Folkerts fatally shot Dutch policeman Arie Kranenburg (born 10 June 1931) and seriously wounded a second officer. Folkerts was arrested, Elisabeth von Dyck, originally mistaken for

Brigitte Mohnhaupt Brigitte Margret Ida Mohnhaupt (born 24 June 1949) is a German convicted former terrorist associated with the second generation of the Red Army Faction (RAF) members. She was also part of the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK). From 1971 until ...

, managed to escape. The German authorities offered Folkerts a new identity in the USA and one million

Deutschmarks The Deutsche Mark (; "German mark"), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later of unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was typically ca ...

if he agreed to betray the hiding place of

. Folkerts claimed later that the BKA at the same time threatened him with hanging if he rejected the offer.

Trials and imprisonment

Knut Folkerts was sentenced in Utrecht to 20 years in prison for the murder of Arie Kranenburg. After one year in Dutch custody however he was transferred to Germany where he faced further serious charges. On 31 July 1980 he was sentenced in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

to two life terms in prison for the murder of

public prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible ...

and his two bodyguards, for forming a terrorist organisation and for the

robbery Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person o ...

at the firearms business in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

. On 16 October 1995 he was released early. Former RAF-members had stated that Folkerts had been in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

at the time of the murder, and so was not involved directly in the action. In May 2007 Folkerts said in an interview with

Spiegel Spiegel is German, Yiddish, and Dutch for "mirror". More specifically, it may refer to: Publications * ''Der Spiegel'', a weekly German magazine * ''Der Spiegel'' (website), the online sibling of ''Der Spiegel'' Political * Spiegel scandal, a 1 ...

magazine, that he knew about the

plan to kill Siegfried Buback, but he was not directly involved. The lawyer Michael RosenthaI, interviewed by the news magazine

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

in 2007, reiterated doubts about the reliability of witnesses who had testified to having seen Folkerts at the scene of the crime.

Legal controversy

On 5 August 2005, the Dutch authorities demanded, not least because of pressure from the murdered policeman's widow, Joke Kranenburg, that Folkert should serve the rest of his sentence for the Utrecht murder. They submitted a

Judicial Assistance Judicial Assistance is the admittance and enforcement of a judicial order or request by a court from one jurisdiction to a court in another jurisdiction. Such admittance sometimes requires a treaty between the governments of the two jurisdictions. ...

application to the German legal authorities. The Dutch move was designed to circumvent a recent (July 2005) judgement by the

German Constitutional Court The Federal Constitutional Court ( ; abbreviated: ) is the supreme constitutional court for the Federal Republic of Germany, established by the constitution or Basic Law () of Germany. Since its inception with the beginning of the post-Wo ...

which had blocked the extradition of German citizens. On 31 May 2006, a court in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

ruled that Folkerts must serve a sentence of 20 years in the Netherlands. However, on 16 June 2011 the Hamburg Regional High Court determined that the Dutch application was inadmissible for reasons of proportionality. The Hamburg court determined that Folkert had renounced terrorism and behaved well since his release in 1995, and they also noted that he had expressed his regrets to the widow of the policeman whom he had killed. On 28 December 2007 the investigating judges of the German

Federal Court of Justice The Federal Court of Justice ( , ) is the highest court of Private law, civil and Criminal law, criminal jurisdiction in Germany. Its primary responsibility is the final appellate review of decisions by lower courts for errors of law. While, le ...

made a Coercive Detention Order of up to six months against the former RAF members Knut Folkerts,

Christian Klar Christian Klar (born 20 May 1952) is a former leading member of the second generation Red Army Faction (RAF), active between the 1970s and 1980s. Imprisoned in 1982 in Bruchsal Prison, he was released on 19 December 2008, after serving over 26 ...

and

. This was intended to force the detainees to make a statement on the 1977 murder of

. Folkerts' lawyer stated that he would not testify. On 7 August 2008 The Federal Court of Justice lifted the Coercive Detention Order.Pressemitteilung des Bundesgerichtshofs
auf juris.bundesgerichtshof.de (15. August 2008)

References

Literature

Stefan Aust Stefan Aust (; born 1 July 1946) is a German journalist. He was the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine from 1994 to February 2008 and has been the publisher of the conservative leading newspaper since 2014 and the paper's editor until ...

: ''Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex''.

Hoffmann und Campe Hoffmann is a German surname. People A * Adolph Hoffmann (1858–1930), German politician * Albert Hoffmann (1846–1924), German horticulturist * Alexander Hoffmann (born 1975), German politician * Andrew Hoffman (born 2000), American baseball ...

, Hamburg 2017, . * Pflieger, Klaus: ''Die Aktion "Spindy", Die Entführung des Arbeitgeberpräsidenten Hanns-Martin Schleyer'', Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft Baden-Baden, 1. Auflage 1997, . * Nach dem bewaffneten Kampf : ehemalige Mitglieder der RAF und Bewegung 2. Juni sprechen mit Therapeuten über ihre Vergangenheit / hrsg. von Angelika Holderberg. - Gießen: Psychosozial-Verl., 2007. - .

External links

Dossier zu Knut Folkerts
by

Spiegel Online ' () is a German news website. It was established in 1994 as ''Spiegel Online'' as a content mirror of the magazine ''Der Spiegel''. In 1995, the site began producing original stories and it introduced ''Spiegel Online International'' for artic ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Folkerts, Knut Living people 1952 births People from Singen 1977 crimes German people convicted of murdering police officers German people imprisoned abroad German prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Members of the Red Army Faction People convicted of murder by the Netherlands People convicted of murder by Germany Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Germany