German officials in the East and West teamed up to capture the second top leftist terrorist suspect in a week, and news reports on Wednesday said more such arrests were expected. West German authorities hailed the joint effort that led to the arrest of 46-year-old Inge Viett, and East Germany's interior minister called it an example of ``success in German-German cooperation'' following decades of enmity. The East German minister, Peter-Michael Diestel, also promised to investigate the extent to which his country's former Communist government _ particularly its hated secret police _ had harbored West German terrorists. ``It's a perverse situation that in the past, terrorists were protected in the German Democratic Republic,'' Diestel told reporters in Bonn. The secret police, once virtually omnipresent, would have known the background of any West Germans resettling in East Germany. Many suspected the secret police, or Stasi, had provided the terrorists with new identities and other help. If so, Diestel said, it was a ``diabolical connection.'' The government-run East German news agency ADN said Ms. Viett, wanted in several attacks, was captured Tuesday night in the East German city of Magdeburg. It immediately led to speculation that other members of the Red Army Faction would turn up in East Germany, or that they once lived there. ``East Germany's chief prosecutor's office is optimistically looking forward to the speedy capture of other terrorists,'' said West Germany's ZDF television network. ZDF also said there are indications of ties linking East Germany's secret police and West German terrorists with Middle East terror groups. Law enforcement sources in Bonn, speaking to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, said there were indications that Ms. Viett had worked with Palestinian terrorists in the 1970s. Ever since the two Germanys started their rapid road to unification last fall, the question of terrorism has become increasingly important. Officials on both sides of the crumbling barriers have warned that East Germany could provide fertile territory for new leftist terrorist crimes. Joint efforts were stepped up to capture any Red Army Faction members who may have slipped across the border after a series of attacks that rocked West German industry in the 1970s and 80s. The West German federal police worked with their counterparts in East Germany to capture Ms. Viett unarmed in her apartment in Magdeburg, where she had lived for more than two years. Sources said Ms. Viett's neighbors notified authorities, after seeing West German wanted posters with her picture that had been put up throughout the city. East German police carried out the arrest, and West German authorities arrived in Magdeburg afterward. Ms. Viett's capture and the June 6 apprehension of another suspect, Sussanne Albrecht, represent some of the biggest successes against West German terrorists in years. The West German newspaper Bild said that officials in East and West were close to arresting terrorist suspect Silke Maier-Witt in East Germany. ``Every day, we are counting on seeing the news of her arrest,'' Bild quoted one unidentified West German official as saying. Bild is known to have close ties to government security officials in Bonn. Earlier, the Morgenpost newspaper of Dresden reported that Ms. Maier-Witt had lived in that East German city. She is suspected of having taken part in the 1977 kidnapping and murder of prominent West German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer. Ms. Viett's alleged involvement in terrorism goes back to 1972, when she was accused of taking part in a bombing that killed one man at a boating facility in Berlin. West German authorities have accused Ms. Viett of taking part in the slaying of prominent West Berlin Judge Guenter von Drenkmann in 1974. Ms. Viett is also wanted in the kidnapping of West Berlin Christian Democratic leader Peter Lorenz a year later, among numerous other crimes. In 1978, she allegedly took part in helping Red Army Faction member Till Meyer escape from a Berlin prison. Ms. Viett in 1981 allegedly shot a French policemen, after being stopped by authorities in Paris. The policeman was seriously injured. West German officials announced plans to seek the extradition of Ms. Viett, as they are doing in the case of Ms. Albrecht. Ms. Albrecht is wanted in the 1977 murder of prominent West German banker Juergen Ponto.
