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Jackal sidekick arrested

John Lichfield
Thursday 10 September 1998 00:02 BST
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A RETIRED German terrorist and former associate of Carlos the Jackal has been arrested in France, 22 years after he gave up the struggle against international capitalism.

Hans-Joachim Klein, aged 51, known in his terrorist days as "Angie", was arrested by French anti-terrorist police in Sainte-Honorine-la-Guillaume, Normandy, where he has been living for five years.

Klein was involved in one of Carlos's most spectacular and brutal exploits, the kidnapping of Opec oil ministers in Vienna in December 1975, which ended with the murder of three people. Soon afterwards, he signalled his abandonment of the cause by sending his weapon to the German magazine Der Spiegel. He has spent the past two decades on the run from the German police and his own former associates. He believed they were trying to kill him.

In an interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur three years ago he said: "I'm in hiding. I have no work, no money. It's been like that for 17 years." Soon afterwards a German court re- issued an international arrest warrant for Klein.

The French authorities are said to have been aware for several years that he was living in France without making any special efforts to track him down. He was arrested after a tip-off from the German police.

Klein was known to his neighbours in Normandy as "Dirk" and passed as a freelance journalist.

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