A court in Berlin has sentenced a former member of East Germany’s notorious secret police to 10 years imprisonment for murder.
The Berlin Regional Court on Monday sentenced a former East German secret police employee to ten years in prison for a murder at a border crossing in 1974.
The ruling was the first-ever conviction against a former employee of the Stasi, communist East Germany’s secret police, for actions carried out while in service.
The court found ex-Stasi officer Martin N., 80, guilty of murder for killing Pole Czeslaw Kukuczka at close range as he sought to escape to the West through Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse border point.
I am a bit confused. In Germany there is no x years for murder. The only punishment for murder is life long imprisonment, with the possibility to get out on parole after 15 years.
There is also Manslaughter with 5 to life.
He was sentenced according to GDR law, which allows ten years to life.
According to a German language Der Spiegel article, he was convicted of murder, not manslaughter.
Yeah, this is what is confusing me. Every article i found spoke of a murder conviction, which in Germany should always be “lebenslang”
This is because he was convicted under the GDR criminal law in force at the time. In accordance with the principle of legal certainty, the court could not apply Western German law on him.
On the other hand, he’s 80, so it’s probably going to be a less than 10 year imprisonment.
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