Krenz charged with border killings

Egon Krenz, the East German Communist who in June 1989 praised the Tiananmen Square massacre and who five months later opened the Berlin Wall, was charged yesterday in connection with killings on the East German border.

The case against Mr Krenz and six other leading East German Communists is not expected to come to court until the summer at the earliest. But the trial looks set to be rich in contradictions. Mr Krenz does not believe the court to have jurisdiction over him. "For my political activity in the [German Democratic Republic], I am not subject to the legislation of the Federal German Republic, under national or international law," he said.

In recent years Mr Krenz, 57, has been keen to present himself as a liberal - not least because he happened to be in charge of the Communist ship when it finally sank. But most east Germans remember Mr Krenz primarily as the hardline comrade of the East German Communist Party leader, Erich Honecker, who he replaced.

So far, German justice has found itself constantly tangled by the legacy of East German Communism. Some "little people", including young border guards, have been prosecuted in connection with shootings on the East German death strip. But the big players have tended to get away - not least because their responsibility is less easy to pin down. As one German official noted, "The higher one gets, the more complicated things get, in purely legal terms."

Bonn may have been partly relieved that Honecker's illness gave an excuse to allow him to board a plane into exile in Chile in 1993, where he died of cancer last year.

The German government was unenthusiastic about the prospect of Honecker - who was charged with responsibility for killings at the East German border - revealing embarrassing details about his partly cosy contacts with Bonn in the 1980s.

Most of the prosecutions have had to be based on the East German legal code. Thus, the reform Communist, Hans Modrow, former party leader in Dresden, was prosecuted in connection with election fraud. Mr Modrow's defenders pointed out the trial was something of a paradox, since Mr Modrow was once - even as the Wall came down - seen by Bonn as the bright hope, "the East German Gorbachev".

Other trials have descended into near-farce. Markus Wolff, head of East Germany's international spy network, was accused of "betrayal of one's country". Mr Wolff demanded to know which country he was supposed to have betrayed. Germany's constitutional court has yet to decide whether Mr Wolff can legally be condemned for "betraying" one German state, while being a loyal servant of the second German state whose passport he chose to carry.

Some welcome the tough approach against the former Communist Party leaders. But opinion is split. One poll this week suggested 48 per cent of east Germans are in favour of Communist bosses being put on trial, while 38 per cent are against.