Ex-Stasi officer sentenced to 10 years in jail over 1974 Berlin Wall killing

FILE PHOTO: Hundreds of East Berlin border guards stand atop the Berlin Wall at the Brandeburg Gate faced by thousands of West Berliners on November 11, 1989/File Photo

BERLIN (Reuters) -A former officer for Communist East Germany's Stasi secret police was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday for the fatal shooting of a Polish firefighter at a border crossing between East and West Berlin 50 years ago.

Martin Manfred N, 80, whose last name was not given because of privacy law, was convicted of murder over the March 1974 killing of Czeslaw Kukuczka, a 38-year-old Polish national, the Berlin court said in a statement.