>November 24, 2000 >Former student radical weeps at German friend's terrorism trial >By MIRJAM MOHR >Associated Press Writer > >FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) _ Former student radical leader Daniel >Cohn-Bendit wept at an ex-terrorist's trial for murder Thursday >after testifying how his old friend drifted into militancy and >became involved in the 1975 attack on a conference of OPEC oil >ministers. > >The Frankfurt court briefly interrupted the trial after >Cohn-Bendit, now a Greens party representative in the European >Parliament, broke into tears during testimony that portrayed >defendant Hans-Joachim Klein as an idealist preyed on by recruiters >of the Revolutionary Cells terrorist group. > >``There were two Kleins: the tender one who wanted to help, and >the militant one,'' Cohn-Bendit said. ``Klein overidentified with >the injustices of this world and always went a bit too far.'' > >Klein, 52, is charged with three counts of murder and three of >attempted murder in the OPEC attack in Vienna, Austria, allegedly >led by the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Klein denies >shooting any of those slain _ an OPEC employee, an Iraqi bodyguard >and an Austrian policeman. > >Cohn-Bendit, a leader of 1968 student protests in Paris who >knows Klein from Frankfurt's early-1970s leftist scene, has said he >helped his friend financially after Klein renounced terrorism while >in hiding in 1977. In court, he said Klein had been about to >surrender to German authorities when he was arrested in a French >village in 1998. > >Klein was fascinated in the early '70s with international >left-wing causes and terrorism, but became disenchanted with the >violence, Cohn-Bendit testified. > >``Suddenly he realized what this world was really about,'' he >said, adding that he met Klein under cover in the early '80s and >found ``he was unspeakably ashamed, like a little child that >realized what it has done.'' > >During the Dec. 21, 1975 attack, Klein was wounded by a gunshot >to the stomach. The terrorists took 70 hostages and, after >negotiating their escape with Austrian authorities, flew to Algeria >with 35 of them. Klein and Carlos the Jackal disappeared and >reportedly took refuge in the Middle East. > >Klein avoided capture until his Sept. 8, 1998 arrest in a >village in the Normandy region of France, where he had lived under >an assumed name for five years. He was extradited to Germany for >trial. > >Carlos the Jackal, a Venezuelan whose real name is Ilich Ramirez >Sanchez, was arrested in Sudan in 1994 and is serving a life >sentence in France for three other murders.
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