STRASBOURG, France — The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday confirmed the 1997 manslaughter conviction of Egon Krenz, East Germany's last communist leader.
Krenz, 63, argued that his conviction and 6 1/2-year sentence violated his human rights because he broke no East German law by stopping citizens from escaping. He served in a succession of senior government positions from 1973 until reunification with West Germany in 1990.
About a thousand people were killed trying to cross over to the west during East Germany's 41 years as a country.
Europe's highest human rights court also upheld the convictions of two other East Germans: former defense minister Heinz Kessler, 80, and former deputy defense minister Fritz Streletz, 74.
In Berlin, a German justice ministry spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said the rulings confirmed "that the German courts made the right decision."
Kessler was sentenced to 7 years in prison and Streletz to 5 1/2 years, but both were released last year. Both were members of the East Germany National Defense Council that oversaw shoot-to-kill orders at the Berlin Wall and other border barriers to the West.
Although none of the three senior officials was convicted of pulling triggers, they were judged to bear political responsibility for deaths at the wall while they were in power. The ruling against them by the 17 Strasbourg judges was unanimous.
However, the court split 14-3 in upholding a German court's conviction of a border guard identified only as "Mr. W."
The border guard received a 20-month suspended sentence for intentional homicide after being convicted of shooting a person trying to escape across the border in 1972.
Krenz's attorney, Robert Unger, acknowledged after the ruling that he had exhausted all the legal possibilities of appeal. But he maintained that the European court, like the German courts before it, had misinterpreted East German law "and decided by western standards."
Kessler's lawyer had told the court that East Germany never had a formal policy to shoot and kill those trying to flee westward. The lawyer for the former border guard argued that his client was but the last in a long chain of command.
The German government's lawyer told the European court that German courts acted correctly in judging Krenz and the others. He said that the use of a gun could be justified only as a last resort to stop a crime.
The government argued that even East German courts would have punished those responsible for the deaths, had charges ever been brought there.
The European Court of Human Rights has the power to overturn rulings from national courts that it deems to be in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Hundreds of former East German border guards and officials have been convicted since German unification for shootings at the former border. Most received suspended sentences or parole.
Krenz was temporarily released from prison while the Strasbourg court dealt with his case. He began serving his sentence in January of last year.