A Berlin court today sentenced a former Stasi agent to ten years in prison for the 1974 murder of a Polish fireman in East Berlin when he tried to escape to West Berlin.

At the end of this historic trial, Martin Naumann, 80, was found guilty of murdering Czeslaw Kukuczka as he headed towards the Friedrichstrasse border crossing.

According to the Guardian, Nauman shot Kukutska in the back at point-blank range on March 29, 1974, as he walked toward the last checkpoint in a series of checkpoints. Earlier, he had been told that he had permission to cross into West Berlin.

Naumann – originally from Leipzig – has repeatedly denied the charges against him. He was one of the first former East German officials to be charged with murder instead of manslaughter.

Prosecutors had asked for a 12-year prison sentence, stressing the “particularly treacherous” nature of the Polish citizen’s murder.

The truth surrounding Kukutska’s death was never revealed to his family. Instead, his cremated remains were sent in an urn to his wife, Emilia, weeks later, after which he was buried in a private ceremony by his family in southern Poland.