Ex-Stasi East German officer, 80, jailed over 1974 Berlin border killing

A former East German secret police officer was sentenced to 10 years in jail in a landmark ruling on Monday for shooting dead a Polish man trying to flee to the West 50 years ago.

The sentence, almost 35 years after the Berlin Wall fell, marks the first time a former Stasi officer has been convicted of a homicide committed on duty, according to historians.

The Berlin court found Martin Manfred Naumann, now 80, guilty of murder for shooting Czeslaw Kukuczka, 38, in the back at close range as he sought to flee through Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse border point in 1974.

The killing was witnessed by a group of West German schoolgirls on their way back from a class trip. In the trial held decades on, the women testified in court.

Judge Bernd Miczajka said the court had no doubt that Naumann was the gunman who had “mercilessly” carried out the killing at the orders of the Stasi.

Wearing a blue jacket and red polo neck, Naumann – a thin man with a shock of white hair – fixed his eyes on the judge as the verdict was read out, his hands clasped in front of him.