German police release pictures of Red Army Faction terrorists wanted for armed robberies

German authorities have released new photographs of two former Red Army Faction terrorists wanted on suspicion of a series of armed robberies.

Pictures of Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg were released by Lower Saxony state police, who are searching for three former members of the extreme-left terrorist organisation believed to be responsible for a series of crimes after going on the run in the early 1990s.

"The images were taken this year," prosecutor Marie-Louise Tartz said, reported Deutsche Welle, but said police would not disclose exactly when and where the images were taken while the investigation is ongoing.

Police described Staub, 61, as having a "lack of dental hygiene", while they described the distinguishing features of Garweg, 47, as including a "big nose" and "pointy face".

The most recent picture of the third member of the group, Daniela Klette, 57, dates back to 1988.

DNA found in two vehicles involved in attempted armoured car robberies last year in north Germany linked all three individuals to the crimes. In a 6 June attack in Gross Mackenstedt near Bremen three masked robbers using automatic rifles and a grenade launcher attacked an armoured van but failed to gain entry and fled empty-handed. The same trio failed in an attempted robbery of a van near Wolfsburg on 28 December.

The trio are also wanted in connection with a successful 1999 attack on an armoured car in Duisberg using an anti-tank weapon, in which one million Deutschmarks (Euros 500,000; £382,000) was stolen.

The trio are also suspected of a bomb attack on a central German prison in 1993.

Police believe the robberies were carried out by the three suspects for cash, rather than to fund extremist activity.

Emerging from the Baader Meinhof gang in the 1970s, the Red Army Faction is responsible for crimes including the 1977 murder of West Germany's chief federal prosecutor and the chief executive of the Dresdner Bank. The trio are also believed to have been involved in a 'third generation' wave of attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the murder of German bank chief Alfred Herrhausen in 1989, Siemens manager Karl Heinz Beckurts in 1986, and the head of the Treuhandanstalt, the trust responsible for the privatisation of state-owned property from East Germany, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder in 1991.

The Red Army Faction disbanded in 1998.