‘German terrorists’ caught after battle with Dutch police

Press, 12 November 1977, Page 8

‘German terrorists’ caught after battle with Dutch police

NZPA Amsterdam Two men believed to be members of the terrorist Red Army Faction have been seriously wounded in a gun and hand-grenade battle with Dutch police and are being held at a hospital, the police have said.

The police would not confirm reports that they were hunting a woman who fled from the scene of the shooting.

Taxi drivers said they were told to alert police if they saw a woman dressed in grey slacks and a lightcoloured coat. They were warned not to approach her because she might be dangerous. Taxi drivers also were told to watch for a red Opel car with German licence plates, also believed to have been involved in the shooting.

The battle occurred in a residential suburb west of the city after the police were about to arrest suspects they were following a police spokesman said.

He refused to confirm reports that a car chase had taken place, but said that hand grenades were hurled by the suspects as the police closed in.

A section of the city was cordoned off and only resi-

dents were allowed through an outer police barrier. A telephone booth inside an inner cordon had been shattered by gunfire.

United Press International quoted a police spokesman as saying that the three police officers returned to headquarters after hospital treatment but “the two suspects are in a very serious condition although I don’t know the exact extent of their injuries at this time.

“The names and nationalities of the two are still not firmly established but at this moment I can tell you they do belong to the Red Army Faction,” which is also known as the Baader-Mein-hof gang of West German urban guerrillas. Dutch police have beer, hunting at least six suspected Red Army members since September 25 when Brigitta Mohnhaupt aged 28, and Knut Folkerts. aged 25, allegedly killed a Utrecht police officer and seriously wounded a second during a gun battle near a car rental agency.

The two allegedly had been involved in a snooting incident in the Hague two days earlier in which a policeman was shot in the stomach. The woman escaped, but Folkerts was arrested and charged with murder. He will go on trial on December 6 in Utrecht. The Red Army is said to have threatened new acts of violence after the rescue by West German commandos of 86 hostages from a hijacked Lufthansa airliner in Somalia. Three of the four hijackers, who were demanding the release of 11 BaaderMeinhof members from West German jails, were killed. Three of those in jail, including Andreas Baader, cofounder of the gang, were found dead in their cells only hours after the lightting rescue action on October 18. Their deaths were listed as suicides.