Investigators check the scene following a car bomb attack at U.S. Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, western Germany, in this Aug. 8, 1985 file picture. A German court said Friday Aug. 17, 2007 it has ordered the early release on parole of former Red Army Faction member Eva Haule who was convicted in connection with the 1985 murder of a U.S. soldier and the bombing of the U.S. base in Frankfurt. (AP Photo)
German 'Punishment'
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 8/17/2007
Terrorism: How could Eva Haule, a Marxist terrorist, so easily manipulate German justice with only a handful of years in jail for the cold-blooded murder of a U.S. soldier? Not only is it a travesty, it's ominous for Germany.
Without much fanfare, the high court in Frankfurt ruled that Haule, 53, was to be paroled Tuesday after 21 years in jail because she "no longer poses a threat to the public."
Maybe not, sitting in prison, with her murderous little terror group, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, disbanded. But the "public" is irrelevant because Haule was always very specific about her targets.
Haule was first convicted of trying to blow up a NATO school in Oberammergau in 1984, and of document falsification and belonging to a terror group. Later, she was found to be involved in other base attacks, including the August 1985 killing of a 20-year-old U.S. serviceman, Edward Pimental, just to get his ID card.
That card was used the next day to blow up another U.S. base, killing two more and injuring 23. Responding to the outcry, the gang, calling itself the Red Army Faction, showed its true mettle with the message: "We're not misty-eyed social workers."
The German government claims Haule has expressed remorse for her crimes (a requirement for release). Sorry, we don't believe it.
None of Haule's prison activism over the years suggests remorse. Indeed, all she has done in jail is try to rationalize herself. Worse, she has refused to disclose who did the other unsolved murders committed by her gang during its 1975-91 killing rampage.
Considering how many crimes Haule committed, 21 years amounts to just a few years per murder. By one account, Haule really did just six years for the cold-blooded killing of Pimental, because her role in that crime wasn't even addressed by German courts until 2001.
The other 15 years of her "life" sentence were for her role in a car-bomb attack. The 21 years she served is a "life" term, according to German justice. What did she learn while there? That violence isn't necessary in Germany to game the system?
In her first three years, she went on a hunger strike to get moved to a cushier prison. German authorities caved in to her demands.
She got herself listed as a "political prisoner" on several fringe left Web sites to raise public pressure for her release — as if luring a 20-year-old to his death was equivalent to voting Social Democrat.
Then she used free prison photography classes to take pictures of convict women and publish them in a book as a means of raising her public profile to better her chances of getting out.
"As I always say: 'What I do here should get me out of here,' " she told Turkish Daily News in 2007.
Her work was feted around Europe by the radical chic as that of an "anti-imperialist activist." A gallery financed by Austria's government showed her photos.
With plenty of time on her hands, Haule also engaged in activism around the plight of another "political prisoner," the radical leftist cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal.
She signed a "Dear Comrades" letter in 1994 demanding a reprieve for the death-row killer. "The reactionary forces now are up to extinguish every example of struggle for a radically different life and revolutionary perspectives," the letter said. "They take Mumia because he is an example for this struggle, his life stands for our collective revolutionary history."
Why is this important? Apart from al-Qaida, Germany is seeing the rise of new left-wing terror groups such as "mg," an arson group that claims "credit" for more than 25 fires. The slack German justice system is sending these fringe terrorists — as well as Islamofascists — a message of just how lenient they are. Appeasers of terror.
German justice has to do a lot better than this. Haule's abbreviated term in jail isn't even deterrence, let alone punishment.
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Eva Haule
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