Former officer with East Germany’s secret police sentenced to prison for a border killing in 1974

BERLIN (AP) — An 80-year-old former officer with communist East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of a Polish man at a border crossing in divided Berlin 50 years ago. The Berlin state court said in its ruling Monday that there was no doubt that the then-first lieutenant shot Czesław Kukuczka, a 38-year-old Polish citizen, in an ambush on March 29, 1974 on behalf of the East German secret police. German news agency dpa reported that the defendant remained silent in court, but his lawyer had said at the beginning of the trial that he denied the allegations. The verdict can still be appealed.