WIESBADEN, Dec 22: Germany pardoned and released on Monday a former leftist terrorist who took oil ministers hostage at a 1975 meeting in Vienna of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Hans-Joachim Klein, a former member of the group Revolutionary Cells, was freed on a decision of the state government of Hesse, where he was serving his prison sentence.

A gang of terrorists led by Venezuelan-born Carlos the Jackal burst in on the oil ministers in Dec 1975 and insisted on being flown out of the Austrian capital at gunpoint. In the course of the mayhem, three people were killed.—dpa