(Adnkronos) – Martin Naumann, a former Stasi agent, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of Polish citizen Czesław Kukuczka, which took place in March 1974 at the border crossing between former East and West Germany in Berlin. The 80-year-old, now living in Leipzig, was a police first lieutenant at the time of the incident and was operating at the Friedrichstrasse crossing. Naumann was accused of shooting the 38-year-old Polish citizen Kukuczka in the back from a distance of 2-3 meters, responding to an order to “neutralize” the victim.
50 years after the incident, the Berlin Regional Court found the officer guilty of murder and sentenced him to 10 years, slightly less than the 12 requested by the prosecution. The truth about Kukuczka’s death was never revealed to his family. Details linking Naumann to the murder only emerged in 2016, thanks to the use of a digital puzzle machine that reassembled documents destroyed by Stasi officers in the regime’s dying days.
Naumann, who has always denied the charges against him, was one of the first former East German officials to be charged with murder rather than manslaughter. Prosecutors had sought a 12-year prison sentence for him, highlighting the “particularly insidious” nature of the murder, as Kukuczka was shot dead just as he believed he had reached freedom.
