A historic trial. A former agent of the Stasi, the political police of the former communist GDR, was convicted this Monday, October 14, by the Berlin court for the murder of a Pole who wanted to flee to the west 50 years ago , reports theAgence France Presse (AFP).
At the end of the trial, the court found Martin Naumann, aged 80, guilty of murder for shooting Czeslaw Kukuczka in the back as he tried to escape through the Friedrichstrasse border crossing in Berlin in 1974.
The Court has “undoubted conviction” that Martin Naumann is the author of the shots which cost the life of the 38-year-old fugitive, declared the president of the court Bernd Miczajka. Even if he didn’t act “for personal reasons”he has “executed without mercy” an act “planned by the Stasi”detailed the judge.
New information found by two historians
The German prosecutor’s office had requested 12 years in prison for the former lieutenant, now retired. The person concerned rejected the accusation through his lawyers, who called for his acquittal. But he never spoke before the judges.
This trial, recorded because of its historical value, is the culmination of a long investigation also carried out on the Polish side.
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It was only made possible by the appearance of new information found by two German and Polish historians in the Stasi archives in 2016, linking Martin Naumann to the fugitive’s death, and the discovery of new potential witnesses.
The first officer to be convicted of murder
Since its launch in March, the trial has taken the country back to the time of the Cold War, a period during which Germany was split in two by the Iron Curtain between FRG in the west and GDR in the East.
According to the head of the secret police archives in Berlin, Daniela Münkel, Martin Naumann becomes with the verdict rendered this Monday the first former agent of the secret police of the former communist East Germany to be convicted of murder.
