German terrorist suspect jailed

Klump insists she never belonged to Red Army Faction

STUTTGART, Germany -- A German court has sentenced a suspected terrorist to nine years in prison for an attempted Spanish disco bombing, the Associated Press has reported.

The state court in Stuttgart found Andrea Klump, 43, guilty of two counts of attempted murder, plotting to cause an explosion and attempted blackmail and hostage-taking.

The bombing attempt failed because of a problem with the detonator, prosecutors said. They asked for a 10-year sentence, arguing that the attempted attack in 1988 in Rota, Spain would have caused serious loss of life.

Klump last month admitted her involvement in the plot but denied the attempt was intended to be fatal.

She said Palestinians planned the attack on the disco -- frequented by U.S. seaman -- not the German-based Red Army Faction terrorist group.

Klump was arrested in 1999 after a shoot out with police in Vienna, Austria. She was accompanied by wanted Red Army Faction suspect Horst Ludwig Meyer, who was shot dead by police after he drew a pistol on an officer who asked to see his identification.

Prosecutors say Klump, Meyer and another unidentified person travelled together in 1988 to Spain, where they planned to carry out an attack on the discotheque at Rota's Hotel Playa de la Luz.

But a homemade detonator triggered prematurely without setting off the 13.5 kilos (30 pounds) of explosive attached to a stolen moped, they said. Klump then forced a British couple at a nearby campsite to drive her to the city of Seville.

During the trial, the court dropped charges against Klump that she was a Red Army Faction member from 1984 to 1998, arguing that they would not be a significant factor in a sentence.

Klump rejected the charge, insisting she had never belonged to the organisation's structures.

The Red Army Faction's more than two decades of attacks against NATO and industrial targets in Germany ended in 1992, when the group said it had ceased the use of violence, AP reported.

In 1998, the group declared itself officially disbanded in a letter to news media.

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