Scientist said to be examining terrorist's preserved brain

MAGDEBURG, Germany -- A German university said Friday it was investigating a claim that one of its professors had secretly examined the brain of Red Army Faction terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, looking for signs of what made her turn to violence.

Meinhof's daughter claimed in a newspaper article published Friday that her mother's brain was preserved after she committed suicide in prison in 1976.

Meinhof was a leader of the Red Army Faction, a left-wing revolutionary group that spread fear across West Germany in the 1970s and into the '80s after her death. The group was originally known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, after Meinhof and co-founder Andreas Baader.

For years Meinhof's brain sat in formaldehyde packed away among specimens kept by pathologist Juergen Pfeiffer in Tuebingen, who handled the case for the local prosecutor's office.

In 1997, Pfeiffer heard about research being done by a professor at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Magdeburg, according to Meinhof's daughter, Bettina Roehl.

Magdeburg psychiatry professor Bernhard Bogerts, who was researching whether a murderer's brain could show physical signs of what caused a person to turn to violence, was then secretly given Meinhof's brain to study, Roehl said.

Bogerts was out of the country Friday and could not be reached for comment.

University spokesman Klaus Pollmann said the school was investigating the claim and whether laws were broken. He said he had no details on Bogerts' projects, but knew that Roehl and the professor had been in touch recently.