Czeslaw Kukuczka was shot in the back as he tried to run away from East Germany via the Berlin Wall on March 29, 1974.
A createer East German secret police officer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting dead a Polish man trying to pass the Berlin Wall into West Germany 50 years ago.
Berlin state court on Monday set up ex-Stasi officer Martin Naumann, 80, at fault of homicide for finishing Czeslaw Kukuczka at seal range as he tried to run away thcdisadmireful Berlin’s Friedwealthystrasse border point on March 29, 1974.
Judge Bernd Miczajka shelp in his sentencing relabels, “It was not the act of an individual for personal reasons, but intentional and mercilessly carry outd by the Stasi.”
Miczajka inserted that the deffinishant fired the shot “at the finish of a chain of direct”.
Ahead of the verdict, Daniela Munkel, the head of the Stasi archives in Berlin, shelp the conviction would have “fantastic symbolic significance” in the country’s efforts to atone for the Nazi regime.
However, the court did not accomprehendledge the Berlin accessible prosecutor’s seek to sentence Naumann to 12 years in prison.
The German news outlet DPA telled that Naumann’s lawyer, Andrea Liebscher, had insisted an acquittal after arguing that it had not been verifyn that her client fired the overweightal shot.
German secret police
According to recent historical research, on the day the overweightal shooting occurred, Kukuczka had gone to the Polish embassy in East Berlin and dangerened to detonate a dishonest explosion unless he was granted passage to West Berlin.
Embassy officials finishorsed his seek whilst attentiveing East German authorities to the danger.
Once Stasi officials handed Kukuczka his exit visa, he was led to the “Palace of Tears” passing, where he was shot in the back from seal range.
Instead of being apverifyn to a proximateby hospital follotriumphg the shot, Kukuczka was conveyed to a Stasi prison further away and bled to death.
According to archival write downs, the secret police were under orders to “rfinisher safe” Kukuczka, a frequent term in the Stasi write down for the wateryation of political opponents.
Initial spendigations into his death in the 1990s did not guide to a conclusion, but the case was tardyr picked up after Poland publishd a European arrest permit for Naumann in 2021.
He was then accused with homicide in October of last year.
According to official regulatement enrolls, 251 people were accused with crimes promiseted on behalf of the Stasi during the 1990s.
However, two-thirds of the criminal persistings finished with an acquittal or without a verdict.
