Wanted German terror suspects give themselves up

BERLIN, Feb 4 (Reuters) Two suspected members of a German left-wing militant group which took part in some of the most notorious hostage dramas of the 1970s have surrendered to authorities after 19 years on the run.

Federal state prosecutors in Karlsruhe said today that the two suspected members of the ''Revolutionaere Zellen'' (RZ), or Revolutionary Cells, had given themselves up in December.

The group emerged in the early 1970s from the radical left-wing scene in Germany, which also spawned the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang.

According to the Web site of the Interior Ministry of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the RZ were responsible for at least 295 attacks between 1973 and 1995.

RZ members helped Carlos the Jackal take ministers hostage at an OPEC conference in Vienna in 1975. Two RZ members were killed in July 1976 when the Air France plane they helped hijack was stormed by Israeli special forces in Entebbe, Uganda.

German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported that the two suspects were ''a couple''. A spokesman for federal prosecutors declined to give the sexes of the suspects.

The two were given a conditional release from custody but were likely to be charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation, the spokesman added.

REUTERS MS RAI2153