The manslaughter trial of Erich Honecker is expected to last two years, but a doctor was quoted Thursday as saying the former East German Communist leader is not expected to live that long.
Honecker is charged with 13 counts of manslaughter in the deaths of people shot by border guards as they tried to escape the country. Thursday was the third session of his trial, considered the most important in Germany since the Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II.The court already has suspended two of Honecker's five co-defendants from the trial because of their failing health, and proceedings are limited to two short sessions a week.
Honecker, 80, who ruled East Germany from 1971 to 1989, has liver cancer.
Honecker's doctor said in a letter to the Tagesspiegel newspaper published Thursday that the District Court could be violating his patient's human rights by keeping him in prison during the trial.
Defense lawyers petitioned Monday to remove Chief Judge Hansgeorg Braeutigam and his two associate judges on grounds that their refusal to show mercy to Honecker indicates bias, but a separate court rejected the petition Thursday.
"Herr Honecker is definitely suffering from a quickly advancing liver illness," wrote Professor Volker Taenzer, a radiologist at the Moabit prison hospital.