Former German Guerrilla Klar Released From Prison

Klar, in prison since 1982, was convicted in 1985 of nine murders and 11 counts of attempted murder.

Christian Klar, a former member of the Red Army Faction (RAF), was released from jail on Friday after spending 26 years in prison for his part in a wave of killings that shook Germany in the 1970s.

Klar, 56, was released on parole from Bruchsal prison near Karlsruhe in southern Germany, the Baden-Wuerttemberg state Justice Ministry said.

Klar, in prison since 1982, was convicted in 1985 of nine murders and 11 counts of attempted murder.

A court ruled last month Klar would be released on Jan. 3 after serving the minimum term for a life sentence.

It said he was no longer a threat to society even though he had not distanced himself from his acts. He was released two weeks early for work he performed in prison, the ministry said.

It provided no information about where Klar would serve his five years of parole.

The looming release of Klar had stirred controversy in Germany after President Horst Koehler considered a request to pardon him last year.

At the time, some politicians said the killer had done his time and no longer posed a threat to society. Others argued that Klar had never shown regret for his actions or offered details on the killings and deserved no pardon.

The RAF, also known as the "Baader-Meinhof Gang" after founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, was a left-wing guerrilla group which grew out of student protests and anti-Vietnam War movements in 1960s West Germany.

Its members launched violent attacks to combat "U.S. imperialism" and what they said was a morally corrupt society that had failed to deal with its Nazi past.

The group is believed to have killed 34 people between 1970 and 1991, before disbanding 10 years ago.

Among the murders he was convicted of being involved in were those of federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback and Juergen Ponto, the head of Dresdner Bank, both killed in attacks leading up to the bloody "German Autumn" of 1977.