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Aug. 6, 2004 | Berlin -- A court found two former top East German officials guilty Friday of failing to stop the killing of people trying to escape across the Berlin wall and sentenced them to probation.

The trial was likely to be the last high-profile case, closing an era nearly 15 years after the wall was torn down to mark the beginning of the end of Soviet domination in Central and Eastern Europe.

Hans-Joachim Boehme, 74, and Siegfried Lorenz, 73, former members of the ruling Politburo of the East German Communist Party, embraced supporters outside the court.

Both were convicted of being accessories to murder in three shooting deaths between 1986 and 1989.

Prosecutors had asked for probation. A leading former East German democracy activist said it was important that judges establish responsibility, regardless of the sentence.

“People who lost relatives at the wall are concerned perhaps not so much with tough sentences as with justice really being done, and that means establishing authoritatively that what happened was wrong,” said Marianne Birthler, who now oversees the archives of the Stasi, the former East German secret police.

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