(ANSA-AFP) - BERLIN, MAR 14 - A former Stasi officer on
Thursday denied the 50-year-old murder of a Polish man
attempting to flee East Berlin, at the opening of a trial that
could impact how communist-era killings are prosecuted in
Germany. Martin Naumann, 80, spoke only to confirm his identity
as a court in Berlin opened the hearing into his case. The
former officer in the East German secret police has rejected the
charges brought against him for the murder of Czeslaw Kukuczka
at a border crossing between East and West Berlin in 1974, his
lawyer said.
The delay in bringing the legal proceedings illustrates the
challenges Germany has had in delivering justice to victims of
the communist government. At least 140 people were killed trying
to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989, and many
hundreds more trying to exit East Germany by other means. The
border guards and other East German officials who have faced
trial so far have usually been charged with manslaughter -- a
lesser charge on which the statute of limitations would have run
out in Naumann's case. The former Stasi man is accused of
gunning down Kukuczka on March 29, 1974, as the Pole passed
through the border control post at Friedrichstrasse train
station, one of the best-known crossing points in divided
Berlin. (ANSA-AFP).
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