A former Stasi officer, East Germany’s secret police, faces sentencing Monday in a 50-year-old case over the killing of a Polish man who tried to escape to West Berlin.
If the accused ex-officer, Martin Naumann, is found guilty, it will be the first conviction of its kind – almost 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Naumann, 80, is accused of killing Czeslaw Kukuczka by shooting him in the back at close range as the Pole tried to flee across the border at the Friedrichstrasse train station in 1974.
Three West German schoolgirls, who were returning from a school trip, witnessed the killing at the border crossing, which is called the Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears, ed.), because of the many tearful farewells that took place there.
The three schoolgirls, who are now adults, have been summoned to testify in court in Berlin.
The prosecution wants Naumann to be imprisoned for 12 years. Naumann has denied the charges through his lawyer, but has himself declined to speak in court.
The defenders argue that there is no proof that it was Naumann who shot, and that it cannot be proven whether the killing was negligent.
If it is a case of negligent manslaughter, the statute of limitations has expired.
Overall, at least 140 people were killed trying to escape over the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989. Hundreds more were killed trying to escape East Germany by other means.
If Naumann is found guilty, he will be the first former Stasi officer to be found guilty of murder. This is what Daniela Muenkel, director of the stasia archive in Berlin, tells us.
It will have “great symbolic significance” for Germany’s efforts to make amends for the injustices that took place under communist rule, says Muenkel.
If, on the other hand, Naumann is acquitted, then “it will probably mark the end of the legal reassessment” of the crimes committed in the former East Germany, she says.
/ritzau/AFP
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
