A sequence of triumphs after some occasional bungling
Residents of Lüttringshausen, a suburb of Dortmund, West Germany, were startled early last week by the sound of gunshots issuing from a dense forest only 200 yds. from a crowded autobahn. Police investigating the reports surprised two men and a woman blazing away with pistols at a newspaper pinned to a tree. The trio turned their weapons on the police, killing one officer and wounding another in the thigh. The wounded cop managed to shoot two of the attackers, who were later identified as Michael Knoll, 27, and Angelika Speitel, 26, both members of the terrorist Red Army Faction. Speitel is wanted in connection with the kidnap and murder of Industrialist Harms-Martin Schleyer and the deaths of Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and Banker Jürgen Ponto.
The capture of Knoll and Speitel was the latest in a month-long string of triumphs for West German antiterrorist forces. After more than a year of intensive man hunting, they are closing in on the country's elusive urban guerrillas. Of the 25 most wanted terrorists, twelve have now been apprehended or slain. Among the other coups:
> Four weeks ago Düsseldorf police were summoned to a restaurant by a diner who had recognized Willy Peter Stoll, a suspect in the Schleyer case. Stoll was killed in a shootout with plainclothesmen. A few days later suspicious neighbors called police to an apartment where they found Stoll's crudely coded diary, an arsenal of weapons (including a homemade "Stalin Organ" capable of firing primitive missiles) and fingerprints of six of Stoll's RAF comrades.
>In Wiesbaden the following week, police raided an apartment stocked with guns, ammunition and 30 kg of explosives. They also found evidence that led to the arrests of Sylvia Herzinger, 33, and Leila Bocook, 25, both suspected of belonging to the Revolutionary Cell, a group responsible for a rash of bombings and arson in Frankfurt, Mainz and Wiesbaden.
>In London, Scotland Yard detectives nabbed Astrid Proll, 31, wanted for taking part in the 1970 attack that freed Terrorist Andreas Baader. Scheduled to stand trial on attempted murder and bank robbery charges with others in the Baader-Meinhof gang, Proll had been released from custody for medical reasons and had jumped bail. When arrested, she was working at a government-sponsored vocational training school.
This recent police performance is a welcome contrast to the occasional bungling previously displayed by terrorist hunters. In September a Bundestag committee disclosed that antiterrorist police had allowed Stoll and the other RAF suspects, Adelheid Schulz and Christian Klar, to get away after keeping them under close surveillance for two weeks. The cops had even photographed the trio boarding a rented helicopter to make aerial reconnaissance surveys of the homes of potential victims. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt ordered a shake-up of the antiterrorist force.
West Germany has also stiffened its antiterrorist laws, stepped up its collaboration with police in other countries and developed new investigative techniques. Perhaps the most important factors in the captures have been tips supplied by citizens who have recognized the fugitives and alerted the police.