Maier-Witt evaded the West German police till 1980, when she was slipped across to the German Democratic Republic (via Prague) with help from the East German homeland security services (Stasi), and became one of ten former RAF activists who lived hidden across the "internal German border" under a succession of false identities created for them by the East German Ministry of State Security. However, during the months of change that followed the breaching of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Ministry of State Security was dissolved: suddenly East and West German police services began to work together. During the summer of 1990 the ten RAF fugitives were unmasked. Maier-Witt was arrested on 18 June. In 1991 the in Stuttgart sentenced her to ten years' imprisonment, having convicted her on various charges that included participation in the murder of BDA president Hanns Martin Schleyer. She was for good behaviour on 16 June 1995, but the "terrorist" label and accompanying psychological baggage were not so easy to shake off.