The Berlin Regional Court on Monday sentenced a former East German secret police employee to ten years in prison for a murder at a border crossing in 1974, Paralel.Az reports citing DW.

The ruling was the first-ever conviction against a former employee of the Stasi, communist East Germany's secret police, for actions carried out while in service.

Prosecutors had alleged that ex-Stasi officer Martin N., 80, murdered Pole Czeslaw Kukuczka at close range as he sought to escape to the West through Berlin's Friedrichstrasse border point.