Operation Leo

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Operation Leo was a plan to kidnap the Swedish Minister for Immigration Anna-Greta Leijon in 1976. The plan was devised by the second generation of the Red Army Faction.

[edit] The Operation

Leijon was chosen because she held the highest political responsibility for the new Swedish anti-terrorist law, and the goal was to exchange Leijon for 8 'comrades' held in German prisons. The group intended to put the minister in a wooden box so as to prevent her from hearing or seeing anything and subsequently moving her to another location.

The plan was large and complicated and included bank robberies and weapons procurement. However, unbeknownst to the RAF, the Swedish Security Service SÄPO had them under close surveillance. Before the plan could be put into action the police arrested the entire group in an operation code named Ebba Röd.

During the investigation that followed, some 90 people were arrested. Many received long prison terms, and the leader of the group, Norbert Kröcher, was deported to Germany and put in prison. He was released in 1989. After he was arrested they shouted out Ebba Grön in the radios. (Röd is the Swedish word for red, and Grön is the word for green, Ebba was the code name for Kröcher.)

The plan was a direct consequence of the West German embassy siege in Stockholm in 1975. If the plan had gone as planned and Leijon was kidnapped, the group of terrorists who performed the kidnapping were to have named their unit "Commando Siegfried Hausner" in honour of the deceased terrorist who died in the Occupation of the West Germany embassy.