A former agent of the Stasi, the political police of the former East Germany, aged 79 today, is charged with the murder of a Pole who tried to escape to the West in 1974, Berlin prosecutors said.

Prosecutors say the suspect “killed a 38-year-old man at a checkpoint” on his way to West Berlin and have charged him with manslaughter.

At March 29, 1974 the victim showed up at the Polish embassy with a fake bomb in order to get permission to leave for West Berlin. The Ministry of State Security, better known as the Stasi, then decided to apparently approve his request to leave East Germany.

According to Berlin’s public prosecutor’s office, ministry officials gave the man the necessary documents and escorted him to the westbound crossing at the Friedrichstrasse train station in the heart of the city.

But the Stasi agentwhich was then 31 years old and belonged to an operational team of the agency, had undertaken to “neutralize” the Pole. When the latter passed the last checkpoint the accused, who was hidden, shot him in the back and killed him.

The indictment was originally based on the penal code in force in East Germany at the time of the events and provided for the death penalty for the charge of manslaughter. But since the law was amended after German reunification in the early 1990s, the Federal German penal code now applies, which provides for a life sentence if the accused is found guilty.