Doctors Contend Honecker and Top Aides Are Too Ill for Trial : East Germany: The former hard-line ruler is charged with corruption. He has cancer.

Ousted Communist leader Erich Honecker and his former key aides are too feeble to answer corruption charges and will likely never go to trial, prosecutors said Wednesday.

A team of “prominent, independent” doctors, including a psychiatrist, examined the cancer-stricken Honecker and his deputies, said Dieter Platt, spokesman for the state prosecutor.

“The final decision is up to the court,” Platt told The Times in a telephone interview, “but at this point, it (prosecution) doesn’t look likely.”

Only two of the 10 former Politburo and parliamentary members under criminal charges are in jail, Platt said. The rest, including former Prime Minister Willi Stoph, are considered too sickly or senile.

Honecker, 77, is recuperating in a village outside Berlin from surgery to remove a tumor. Doctors have advised that he be moved from the cramped garret room where a village pastor gave has given sanctuary, but angry citizens hounded him away from a more spacious government villa.

“Feelings here are very complicated,” Platt said. “For many reasons, not the least of which is German character, the people long for accountability.”

Hundreds of citizens have called or written the prosecutor, Platt said.

On the streets of East Berlin, people expressed anger at the possibility of no trials.

“I’m not satisfied,” said auto mechanic Andreas Kloebbe, 30. “It’s not right. How come they’re all suddenly at death’s door? They weren’t too old or too sick to commit the crimes.”

Werner Michael, 68, a Leipzig resident, agreed.

“They had so many luxuries and lived so well, while all the time the majority of people were struggling for a decent life,” he said. “Yes, there should be trials--fair trials, though you could say we were all guilty. We’re all part-victim and part-participants.”

Such sentiments are common here these days. East Germans find themselves curiously frozen in history, unable to fully account for their Stalinist past or fully plan their democratic future.

First steps toward forming a new government have proved shaky since the country’s first free elections March 18. Rumors of secret-police collaboration have dogged newly elected Parliament members and stalled coalition talks, which are now scheduled to begin in earnest today between the Christian Democrats and the runner-up Social Democrats.

Grass-roots citizen groups have called for mass demonstrations today to demand that all 400 deputies in the new Volkskammer, or Parliament, be checked for any ties to the dismantled Stasi security police. The state prosecutor’s office has said that such an investigation must be left to the Volkskammer itself, since deputies enjoy immunity.

Officials say the Stasis once numbered 85,000, with 109,000 informants. Files were kept on about 6 million of the country’s 16 million citizens, whose everyday lives were often scrutinized for even the slightest hint of disloyalty to the hard-line regime.

The former Stasi chief, Erich Mielke, is among the ex-Politburo members reportedly unfit for trial. The 82-year-old general, described as “a senile old man” by deputy prosecutor Lothar Reuter in the West German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, is accused of wrongfully imprisoning people and theft. The latter charge stems from the routine Stasi interception of mail, Platt said.

Treason charges were dropped earlier this week against Honecker and his aides, but they are still charged with misuse of power and corruption. The others include former Economics Minister Guenter Mittag, who remains imprisoned but is said to suffer from severe diabetes; former Parliament President Horst Sindermann, 74, who has heart disease, and former Central Committee secretary and Politburo member Hermann Axen, 74.

The prosecutor’s office declined to provide further details about their health problems, citing doctor-patient confidentiality.

No court dates have been set, but the official news agency ADN said a final decision about their fitness to stand trial is likely next month.