Former Stasi officer charged with 1974 Berlin Wall murder

A former member of communist East Germany's Stasi secret police has been charged with murder, for allegedly killing a man who had been let through the Berlin Wall in 1974.

The man was shot in the back as he was walking through a security checkpoint into West Germany.

The defendant, then 31, had been instructed by the Stasi to "neutralise" the Polish man, state prosecutors say.

Now aged 79, he could face life imprisonment if found guilty.

His identity has not been released.

Prosecutors say that on 29 March 1974 the 38-year-old victim entered the Polish embassy in East Berlin carrying a fake bomb and demanded that officials let him cross the border into West Germany.

The Stasi allegedly gave the man permission to cross, but at the same time told the hitman to eliminate him.

After being taken to a crossing point at Friedrichstrasse railway station, the man was allowed to pass through security checkpoints before being "killed with a targeted shot in the back from a hiding place", the prosecutors said.

East Germans were forbidden from crossing the Berlin Wall, which was constructed in 1961 to prevent people fleeing to the West.

Foreign citizens were allowed to cross with the correct documentation.

The wall was patrolled by armed guards who were ordered to shoot escapees. People still tried to escape by climbing over or tunnelling under it.

It stood until 1989, when it was dramatically torn down after border guards were unintentionally given the order to allow people to cross. The communist regime was in crisis at the time.

The Stasi was notorious for its surveillance of East Germany's citizens, many of whom were pressed into spying on each other.