Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, may be released in late March after serving 24 years of a life sentence for kidnappings and murders in the 1970s, the Stuttgart state court ruled.

The decision, which came after a request by Mohnhaupt for early release, is likely to cause a storm in the country, notably because she has expressed no remorse for a murderous RAF campaign which shook West Germany's new democracy to its core.

Mohnhaupt was arrested in 1982 and sentenced to five life sentences for her role in the murders of leading German figures including industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer, Dresdner Bank head Juergen Ponto and federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback.

Mohnhaupt was a leader in the RAF which sought to combat what it saw as capitalist oppression of workers and U.S. imperialism.

Its members started by experimenting in alternative lifestyles in the "free love" communes of West Berlin and Hamburg before turning violent.

Also known as the "Baader-Meinhof Gang" after founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the RAF rose from the student protests of the late 1960s and the anti-Vietnam war movement.

The RAF carried out kidnappings, bank robberies and armed attacks on prominent government and business figures, leaving a trail of death during what became known as the "German Autumn" of 1977.

 U.S. military facilities and personnel in Germany were also targeted.

The group, which announced in 1998 it was disbanding, is suspected of killing 34 people between 1972 and 1991. Some 26 RAF members died during that period and another 26 were sentenced to life in prison.

Many of them, mostly secondary members, have since been released or pardoned and now work as teachers, accountants, filmmakers and journalists -- some under assumed names. Only four, including Mohnhaupt and Klar, remain incarcerated.

Mohnhaupt was a prominent member of a second generation of RAF members who continued the class war after Baader and Meinhof were caught and committed suicide.