New Evidence?

The news weekly Der Spiegel reported in an issue to be published Monday that it had evidence which allegedly showed that an ex-member of the Red Army Faction guerrilla group, Stefan Wisniewski, had shot and killed chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback.

The murder, which was never solved, had long been blamed in part on fellow RAF radical Christian Klar, who recently lodged a plea for clemency with President Horst Köhler after more than 24 years in prison.

Klar was arrested in 1982 and jailed for his role in multiple murders. His sentence stipulates that he will not be eligible for parole until 2009, unless he is pardoned first.

Buback became the first victim of a bloody era dubbed the "German Autumn" of 1977 when he was shot in his Mercedes car by a RAF gunman on a motorcycle in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe.

Old news for German officials?

Der Spiegel reported that former RAF member Verena Becker had told German authorities in the early 1980s that Wisniewski had slain Buback, and it quoted another RAF militant, Peter-Jürgen Boock, as now confirming that claim.

They said Klar had merely driven the get-away car.

Wisniewski was released in 1999 after 21 years in prison for other RAF murders. Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung meanwhile reported that there was no evidence linking Wisniewski to the Buback murder.

Earlier this month, Buback's son Michael gave his support to Klar's plea for clemency after receiving what he called credible information from anonymous sources connected to the now-disbanded group that Klar was not involved in killing.

Michael Buback told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that he had now been called as a witness in the case by federal prosecutors. In Germany murder is not subject to a statute of limitations.

Unforgivable oversight?

Former interior minister Gerhard Baum of the opposition Free Democrats led a chorus at the weekend calling for the case to be reopened, adding that if prosecutors ignored exculpatory evidence in the 1980s it would be "an oversight that would be difficult to forgive."

The RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang after its founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, mounted a violent campaign against what it considered was the oppressive capitalist

state of West Germany from 1977 to 1982.

It targeted the German elite and the US military bases in Germany and is suspected of killing 34 people. The group officially disbanded in 1998.

Brigitte Mohnhaupt, who led the RAF with Klar after the group's original leaders committed suicide in jail, was released from prison in March after serving 24 years for her role in nine murders, including Buback's.

Justice authorities said she no longer posed a threat to society.