Ex-Stasi officer convicted of murder, 50 years after Berlin shooting

An ex-Stasi officer on Monday received 10 years in prison for murder in connection with a fatal 1974 shooting at a border crossing between the former East and West Germany in Berlin.

The 80-year-old defendant from the eastern city of Leipzig was a first lieutenant in the East German secret police, commonly known as the Stasi, at the time of the incident at Berlin's Friedrichstrasse crossing on March 29, 1974.

He was accused of gunning down the 38-year-old Pole Czesław Kukuczka in the back from a distance of 2 to 3 metres, having been tasked with "neutralizing" the victim.

More than 50 years later, the Berlin Regional Court on Monday found the officer guilty of murder and handed down a 10-year sentence, slightly lower than the 12 years demanded by prosecutors.

Judge Bernd Miczajka said the crime was "not the act of an individual for personal reasons, but planned and mercilessly executed by the Stasi."

The defendant was "at the end of a chain of command," Miczajka said, but he was later rewarded for his actions.

The man remained silent during the trial, which started in March. His lawyer called for an acquittal, arguing that there was no proof that her client was the shooter.

Verdict handed down after 50 years

The landmark case is the result of decades of work by investigators in Germany and Poland.

Kukuczka was seeking to emigrate to the United States via West Berlin when he was shot dead on March 29, 1974.

He had threatened to blow up the Polish embassy in East Berlin with a bomb if he was not allowed to cross the border.

Stasi officers gave Kukuczka documents and accompanied him to the Friedrichstrasse station, the busiest crossing between East and West Berlin.

However, after passing the last checkpoint, he was shot in the back and killed.

Initial efforts to investigate the case were blocked by East German authorities.

However, a crucial new clue was discovered in the Stasi archive in 2016, which showed that the defendant received a combat medal for his actions.

The offence was initially regarded as manslaughter, which would have exceeded the time limit for prosecution under the German state's statute of limitations.

But efforts by Polish investigators led to public prosecutors in Berlin to re-classify the crime in 2023 as "treacherous."

This fulfilled an essential criterion to try the defendant for murder, which is not covered by the statute of limitations.

The subsequent trial also featured testimony from a group of West German schoolgirls who witnessed the shooting on their return from a visit to East Berlin.

The victim's children - a daughter and two sons - and sister are appearing as co-plaintiffs in the trial.

The court proceedings were also recorded due to the case's historical significance.