New allegations on Ulrike Meinhof
Sunday, 10 November 2002 10:22The daughter of the German left-wing extremist, Ulrike Meinhof, has claimed that her mother's brain was removed from her body for scientific investigation without the family's permission.
Meinhof was one of the founders of the violent Red Army Faction, which carried out a campaign of killings and bombings against leading industrial figures in the 1970s.
She committed suicide in 1976 along with two other Red Army Faction leaders after becoming post-war Germany's most notorious urban guerrilla.
Bettina Roehl has claimed that tests after her mother's prison suicide showed brain abnormalities which may have made her unfit to stand trial.
Ms Roehl has alleged that Meinhof's brain was preserved in a jar and is kept in a cardboard box at Magdeburg University.
Prosecutors are investigating the claims.
