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25th August 2011, 16:11
A court in Berlin sentenced the former East German leader, Egon Krenz, to six-and-a-half years in prison. Krenz was convicted of instigating a shoot-to-kill policy employed by border guards against people trying to flee East Germany.
He was convicted on four specimen charges of incitement to manslaughter relating to people who were shot dead as they tried to escape to West Germany via the Berlin Wall. Around 1,000 people were killed trying to escape to the West after the Berlin Wall went up in 1961.
(Krenz argued that he could not be convicted in the newly reunited Germany because he had been living at the time under the laws of East Germany. But in 1999 a court rejected his case and he began his prison sentence in January 2000.
He later appealed to the European Court of Human Rights but lost.)
He was convicted on four specimen charges of incitement to manslaughter relating to people who were shot dead as they tried to escape to West Germany via the Berlin Wall. Around 1,000 people were killed trying to escape to the West after the Berlin Wall went up in 1961.
(Krenz argued that he could not be convicted in the newly reunited Germany because he had been living at the time under the laws of East Germany. But in 1999 a court rejected his case and he began his prison sentence in January 2000.
He later appealed to the European Court of Human Rights but lost.)