A former East German secret police officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday in a landmark ruling for shooting a Pole trying to escape to the West 50 years ago.
According to historians, the verdict issued almost 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall is the first conviction of a former Stasi officer for murder committed on duty.
A Berlin court found 80-year-old Martin Manfred Naumann guilty of murder after he shot 38-year-old Czesław Kukuczka in the back at close range in 1974 as he tried to escape through the border crossing on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin.
The murder was witnessed by a group of West German schoolgirls returning from a class trip. In the trial, which took place decades later, the women testified in court.
Judge Bernd Miczajka said the court had no doubt that Naumann was a bandit who “mercilessly” carried out the killing on the orders of the Stasi.
Dressed in a blue jacket and red polo shirt, Naumann – a thin man with a shock of gray hair – stared at the judge as the verdict was read, his hands folded in front of him.
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