50 years on, ex-Stasi officer goes on trial

(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).