Daniela Klette, 67, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by the German court in Verden - the last active member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist organisation who had been on the run. The prosecution had requested a maximum of 15 years; the court handed down 13. Guilty on six counts of armed robbery with aggravated factors.

What is the RAF? A German far-left terrorist group from the 1970s and 1980s, also known as Baader-Meinhof, responsible for at least 30 killings and 200 wounded through attacks, bombings and assassinations. Klette was not part of that original generation - she was part of the third generation, which stayed active even after the group officially disbanded in 1998.

Between 1999 and 2016, Klette and her accomplices (Burkhard Garweg, 57, and Ernst-Volker Staub, 72) robbed armoured vehicles and supermarkets in three German federal states. Total stolen: around two million euros. Not for ideology - to fund their underground life. The revolutionary had become an ATM.

How was she caught? Through photographs from the Berlin Carnival of Cultures - where she had appeared, smiling. Police identified her using advanced facial recognition algorithms. She was arrested in February 2024 in Kreuzberg, the Berlin neighbourhood where she had lived under a false identity for 20 years. In her flat the police found an arsenal of weapons, fake bazookas, forged documents, wigs, gold and 240,000 euros in cash.

The point of this case is specific: 30 years ago Europe had an ideological terrorism with a clear programme. Today's terrorism is a different beast - less ideological, more networked. Klette is the last fossil from that era, and her sentence is a symbolic closing. Germany is shutting the book on the RAF - almost a generation later. A slow process. But trials around political violence always are - legal, not fast.