Honecker Released From Prison, Heads to Chile to Join Family

Released from prison on humanitarian grounds, former East German Communist leader Erich Honecker walked away from manslaughter and embezzlement charges Wednesday and left, probably forever, the city that his Stalinist regime had turned into one of the Cold War’s most bitter symbols.

Unrepentant to the end, Honecker, 80, was whisked from his prison hospital ward by a police escort and taken to the airport for the first leg of his journey to Chile, where his exiled family awaited.

Berlin courts dropped all charges against him after hearing medical testimony that a malignant liver tumor would kill Honecker within a few months--long before a verdict could be reached.

Honecker’s commercial flight from Frankfurt to Sao Paulo, Brazil, was delayed for more than two hours due to security controls, after authorities reported unspecified threats against Honecker.

He made no public statement, but a passenger sitting behind him on the trip from Berlin to Frankfurt told the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur that he showed the flight crew pictures of his grandchild and said he was looking forward to the summer in Chile.

From the air, the barren dirt scars where the formidable Berlin Wall once stood can still be seen, a silent legacy of the 18 years of Honecker’s iron-fisted rule.

Honecker supervised construction of the wall on Aug. 13, 1961, and as Communist Party chairman and head of state, he allegedly issued “shoot-to-kill” orders against any East German caught trying to flee to West Germany across what became the world’s deadliest frontier.

Human rights groups estimate that 200 to 350 people lost their lives trying to escape before the wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989.

Honecker’s daughter, Sonja, is married to a Chilean and lives in Santiago, where Honecker is expected to receive a warm welcome from leftist supporters before being taken to an exclusive clinic to live out what his lawyers insist are his last few months of life.

Berlin’s highest court had declared earlier that forcing Honecker to stand trial when he is dying of liver cancer would “violate his human dignity.”