Former German extremist Klein dies in France

Hans-Joachim Klein, an ex-member of Germany’s defunct extreme-left movement Revolutionary Cells, has died in France where he was buried on Monday, funeral services said.

In 1975, Klein took part in an attack orchestrated by Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal, on the OPEC headquarters in Vienna.

An Iraqi bodyguard, an Austrian policeman and an OPEC member of staff were killed, and 70 people taken hostage by six armed attackers.

He went into hiding, including in France where he spent much of the 1990s until his arrest in 1998 by French anti-terror police.

Klein was sent back to Germany where he was sentenced to nine years in jail in 2001 for his role in the Vienna attack.

Klein had already admitted publicly in 1977 that he had taken part in the attack, during which he was seriously injured, and said that he had renounced political violence.

He was released from prison in 2003 and returned to his former hiding place, Sainte-Honorine-la-Guillaume in Normandy, where local press reports said he resided until his death on November 9.

Ramirez Sanchez is currently serving three life sentences in a French prison for his attacks.