Terror Suspect Caught in W. German Cafe

Six plainclothes police, acting on a tip, strolled into a small town cafe and seized a major terrorist suspect as she sat eating ice cream with two companions, the federal prosecutor’s office said Sunday.

Eva Sibylle Haule-Frimpong, 32, described as a “hard core” member of the of the radical Red Army Faction, was carrying a loaded pistol, 80 rounds of ammunition and false identity papers in her purse when arrested Saturday in Ruesselsheim, 15 miles south of Frankfurt, according to prosecutor’s spokesman Alexander Prechtel.

Witnesses said she was sitting with two companions in the crowded Dolomiti Cafe when six men walked quietly in with hands behind their backs. A moment later the plainclothes men whipped out guns and snapped handcuffs on the three, taking them by surprise.

They were caught after another customer recognized Haule-Frimpong from a “wanted” poster and informed police, the prosecutor’s office said.

The spokesman said an arrest warrant had been out for her since 1984 but that the search for her intensified after a Siemens electronics group research chief, Karl Heinz Beckurts, 56, and his driver, Eckhard Groppler, 42, were killed on July 9 by a remote-controlled bomb.

Police have said Haule-Frimpong was also involved in the February, 1985, killing of arms industry executive Ernst Zimmermann and a car bombing at the U.S. Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt last August that killed two people.

The warrant against her alleges she also participated in the attempted bombing of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization training school in Oberammergau in Bavaria on Dec. 18, 1984.

The people arrested with her were identified as Luitgard Hornstein, 23, and Christian Kluth, 27. The Bild newspaper said they probably were Red Army Faction couriers delivering money to Haule-Frimpong.