Berlin - Mr Erich Mielke, the former chief of the East German secret police, the Stasi, has received around 1,000 euros (£790) compensation for the three months he spent in jail in 1991, a court spokesman said in Berlin yesterday.
Mr Mielke (91) was accused of shooting people who attempted to flee over the Berlin Wall. Last year the charges were dropped when he was deemed too ill to stand trial. He was jailed for six years in 1993 for the murder of two policemen in 1931, when he was accused under the judicial system of the Nazis. He was diagnosed as senile and released in August 1995.