On Sept. 5, 1977, such a carriage was pushed in front of the car of Hanns Martin Schleyer, one of West Germany's most powerful industrialists. His driver slammed the brakes, causing the following police vehicle to crash into Schleyer's limousine. Five masked RAF terrorists immediately killed the three policemen and the driver, and took Schleyer, the head of the German employer's federation, hostage.

The remaining members of the RAF wanted to use Schleyer to blackmail the release of 11 high-ranking terrorists from jail. The plan failed: After a Palestinian group connected to the RAF high-jacked a German passenger plane and landed in Mogadishu, Somalia, the German government in a high-risk mission sent an elite unit of the German federal police, the GSG9, to storm the aircraft. All four hijackers were shot; three of them died on the spot. Not one passenger was seriously hurt.

The remaining RAF leaders in prison, hearing from the GSG9's success, committed suicide. That same night, Schleyer was shot by his German kidnappers, who included Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar, two terrorists who to this day remain locked up in German prisons.

The Mogadishu crisis was the beginning of the end for the RAF, yet in the 1980s, several die-hard members who had successfully went into hiding prolonged the fight. Mohnhaupt led the RAF in those days, and Klar was one of her most vicious accomplices. The pair was arrested in 1982.

Both have recently asked to be let out of jail; After 24 years in prison, Mohnhaupt, 57, has filed a request -- to which she is legally entitled -- to be let out early. Observers say it is likely she will get out by March.

Klar can't be released until March 2009, unless, and this is to be decided within the next weeks, German President Horst Koehler signs Klar's appeal for pardon, a move he is seriously considering.

This has stirred up significant controversy in Germany. The RAF has killed 34 people, among them not only "capitalists," but also police agents and drivers. The question hat divides Germany is: Should the merciless be granted mercy?

According to prison officials, Mohnhaupt and Klar are exemplary inmates, and the woman in the past has distanced herself from the violent ideas of her past. Klar, however, has so far made only half-hearted statements that he really regrets his actions. That's why Koehler is considering visiting Klar in his prison cell to find out whether he really deserves clemency.

Several officials from the left wing of the political spectrum believe it is time to release the pair. Pardoning Klar would be "a humanitarian gesture, a signal of reconciliation," Volker Beck, a Green Party lawmaker, said recently. It was time to draw the final line under Germany's darkest area, proponents of the clemency say.

Conservative politicians and relatives of the victims disagree.

"The majority of the descendants would not find it right if Mohnhaupt or Klar would be released before they have served their time," Berndt Georg Thamm, a German terrorism expert, told United Press International.

Klar, a fanatical fighter in the 1970s, is a particularly controversial figure.

"When he started to shoot around, he couldn't stop until the entire magazine was empty," one former terrorist associate told German news magazine Der Spiegel.

In a 2001 TV interview, the 54-year-old convict, asked about feelings of remorse, answered: "In that political area, with the background of our fight, those aren't the words."

But only two years later, Klar in a statement distanced himself from that interview, claiming that a "return to the violence" of his RAF actions was out of the question. "Of course I have to recognize guilt," he said. "I understand the feelings of the victims and regret the suffering of these people."

Klar's fate now lies in the hands of Koehler, and observers are unwilling to make any predictions over his decision.

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