BERLIN (AP) — An 80-year-old former officer with East Germany's communist secret police, the Stasi, went on trial Thursday for the homicide of a Polish man at a border crossing in divided Berlin 50 years in the past.
The accused, whose identify has not been launched in accordance with German privateness guidelines, is accused of homicide earlier than the state courtroom in Berlin.
He didn’t communicate on the opening of the trial, however his lawyer stated his shopper disputes the fees in opposition to him, German information company dpa reported. There is no such thing as a formal apology within the German authorized system.
Prosecutors introduced their indictment in October.
The case dates again to March 29, 1974, when a 38-year-old Polish man allegedly introduced a faux bomb to the Polish embassy to threaten officers who allowed him to depart for West Berlin and the Stasi determined to faux it that approved his departure. .
He was supplied with exit paperwork and escorted to a border crossing on the Friedrichstrasse prepare station in East Berlin, in accordance with prosecutors.
The defendant – who was 31 on the time – was tasked with rendering the Polish man “innocent”, prosecutors stated. After the Pole had handed the final checkpoint, the suspect shot him within the again from a hideout.
The courtroom has scheduled seven trial periods till Could 23.
Authorities made little progress with the case till a decisive lead on the shooter's id emerged in 2016 from the Stasi's voluminous archives, dpa stated. Prosecutors initially suspected the case would quantity to manslaughter, which, in contrast to homicide, falls beneath the statute of limitations in Germany.
East Germany constructed the Berlin Wall in 1961, stopping most of its residents from touring to the West. Many tried to flee by tunneling beneath it, swimming in entrance of it, climbing or flying over it. Not less than 140 folks died within the try.
The fortified border was opened on November 9, 1989, a key second within the collapse of communism in Europe. Germany was reunited lower than a yr later.
