German Stasi murder trial 50 years after Berlin Wall shooting

Czeslaw Kukuczka was shot dead from a short distance at the Friedrichstrasse station border crossing

For years, the former member of communist East Germany's secret police had been in peaceful retirement in a detached house on the outskirts of Leipzig, tending to his garden.

Now, aged 80, the ex-lieutenant in the Stasi has gone on trial accused of shooting dead a Polish man who tried to flee communism 50 years ago.

Through his lawyer, he denied the charges of murder in court on Thursday.

His name has not been officially confirmed.

But according to prosecutors, while working for the Stasi, he allegedly shot Czeslaw Kukuczka in the back as he tried to cross from East Berlin to the West.

Kukuczka was a Polish firefighter and a father of three, who was desperate to start a new life in the West.

In 1974 he left Poland, ostensibly to spend the weekend in East Berlin. In reality, he had a plan to escape into West Berlin and then, it's thought, on to the US where he had relatives.

While in East Berlin, Kukuczka went to the Polish embassy carrying a briefcase, which he claimed contained a bomb.

He threatened to blow up the embassy if he was not granted permission to leave East Germany.

Czeslaw Kukuczka was shot in the back on 29 March 1974 at Friedrichstrasse station

Kukuczka was given the necessary documents and was accompanied by Stasi officials to the checkpoint at the nearby Friedrichstrasse train station to cross to the West.

He thought his plan had worked, but it was a trick.

As he made his way through the checkpoints, Mr Kukuczka was shot in the back. He later bled to death in a clinic at the Hohenschönhausen Stasi prison.

A group of West German schoolgirls, who were returning from a school trip to East Berlin, say they saw a man in a raincoat and sunglasses shoot him. That man, say prosecutors, was the former Stasi officer on trial in Berlin on Thursday.

East German and Polish officials later attempted to cover up the case, not even telling Kukuczka's family what happened.

The family received an urn to bury, but never the full story. During the 1990s, after German reunification, there were multiple investigations, but never enough evidence to track down the killer.

In 2005, the case was closed.

• Berlin Wall: BBC Archive

But in 2016, Polish and German historians found new evidence in Stasi archives, including records indicating that the accused appears to have received a bronze medal for his role in the case.

Prosecutors believe the new evidence proves that the 80-year-old pensioner is the man who pulled the trigger. The archives also show that Czeslaw Kukuczka's briefcase did not contain a bomb and disprove later claims by East German officials that he was carrying a gun.

At least 140 people were killed trying to leave communist East Germany while the Berlin Wall was up. It is rare for those responsible to face justice.

Until now, those who have been prosecuted were generally accused of manslaughter, not murder.