Seeing how about half of those killed by the RAF were Americans, there are some who do take an interest. My father was in the HQ building on Rhein Main when a RAF bomb went off in the parking lot. They got on the base using an ID stolen from a GI they had previously murdered in Frankfurt. My father was OK. Not that you care, since people like you are more worried about the rights of terrorists. But there are people who care about these minor things. I understand your anger very well and I am for sure not the only German who is against any mercy concerning Mohnhaupt or Klar. Nevertheless you have to understand that it is not you that has a right to judge over those people since those attacks happend in Germany on German soil. That is simply our party. We Germans had good reasons to abolish capital punishment after WWII. There is for sure no country were more "judicial errors" happend in last century than in Germany. It is still better to feed all those moronics than to execute one innocent person. Personally I am really not sure if i.e. the American justice did not made some horrible mistakes in the past with some criminal cases. As far as I know our penology does not see retaliation as important as it is in the US. In fact it is not important at all in our system. The aim of our criminal law is to provide safety for the public and to correct criminal offenders. Other countries other attitudes.
Personally I would take out capital punishment in rare cases on certain persons if they are dangerous and guilty in the same time. I.e. I think the hanging of Saddam Hussein was just. Maybe it is a myth (I do not think so) that Baader, Meinhof and Ensslin were executed by our gouvernment. Nevertheless I think that this (if it was the case) was just too, since their existance posed a thread to innocent people. The existance of contemporary Mohnhaupt and Klar does not pose a thread anymore. Therefore I do not see a reason to execute them. Nevertheless they would die in jail if it would be my decision. There is no excuse for what they have done.
This debate has taken a turn over the discussion of capital punishment. A justice system serves to rehabilitate, deter others, and incapacitate those committing crimes. However, one minor aspect that often gets overlooked is the victims who usually get “closure” through this.
Good example:
http://media.www.lsureveille.com/media/storage/paper868/news/2005/04/13/News/Examining.Execution-2052470.shtml
Is it pure coincidence that most executions are usually attended by the family of the victims? No. The execution is a permanent irreversible act which no longer allows the most heinous criminals an opportunity of escape (Dahmer escaped for example). It no longer allows them to propagate hate in the media which often will gladly stick a microphone in their face because they see a controversial story. Finally, an execution is cheaper. You watch, within 5 years you’ll see a book on the RAF and Mohnhaupt and others will “profit” from their terrorism. Want to bet? The argument which you propose is a perversion of the core benefit of capital punishment, irreversibility. In the perversion this benefit is twisted into an argument as to why it should not be done because of the possibility of a mistake. Fact is, since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976, there has not been a single case where it can be said conclusively a mistake had been made. It’s all speculation and accusations, but in over 3,000 executions not one can be said to have been falsely executed.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/cp00.txt
In the US, the average cost of a high security inmate in a prison is $34,000 per year (2006). In Germany, it surly is not much different that a high security prison costs a lot. Furthermore, Mohnhaupt will be shadowed by the BVS for the rest of her life. She will cost the German tax payer hundreds of thousands per year now that she is out, and even though Der Spiegel won’t report it, it will cost the tax payer more now that she is out of prison than in prison, believe it or not.
You perform an execution for three reasons. It’s cheaper, permanent, and it brings closure for the victims. An execution is not done for rehabilitation or deterrence sake. Someone like Dahmer was not thinking about being executed while committing his crimes and deterrence does not play a factor when looking at the psyche of those doing these sorts of things. It’s done for society’s sake, not the criminal or terrorist.
Prime example: Timothy McVeigh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh
He was guilty, many of the families of victims attended the execution, he won’t ever go free like a Mohnhaupt, he’s not making money from his “terrorism”, and he’s no longer living off of my tax dollar. This vile creature’s existence is over.
The argument that we should "lock them up and throw away the keys" never seems to hold in the long run, as Mohnhaupt and others prove.