Former Stasi official sentenced to 10 years for 1974 Berlin border murder
Al Jazeera
Czeslaw Kukuczka was shot in the back as he tried to flee from East Germany via the Berlin Wall on March 29, 1974.
A former East German secret police officer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting dead a Polish man trying to cross the Berlin Wall into West Germany 50 years ago.
Berlin state court on Monday found ex-Stasi officer Martin Naumann, 80, guilty of murder for killing Czeslaw Kukuczka at close range as he tried to flee through Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse border point on March 29, 1974.
Judge Bernd Miczajka said in his sentencing remarks, “It was not the act of an individual for personal reasons, but planned and mercilessly executed by the Stasi.”
Miczajka added that the defendant fired the shot “at the end of a chain of command”.
Ahead of the verdict, Daniela Munkel, the head of the Stasi archives in Berlin, said the conviction would have “great symbolic significance” in the country’s efforts to atone for the Nazi regime.
