GERMANS FREE AILING COMMUNIST CHIEF

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 14, 1993                   TAG: 9301140004
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BERLIN                                LENGTH: Short
GERMANS FREE AILING COMMUNIST CHIEF
An ailing Erich Honecker was freed from prison Wednesday and began traveling to his family in Chile, leaving behind bitterness over his Communist East German regime that killed people for attempting to flee to the West.
Reviled by many, pitied by others, the 80-year-old unrepentant Communist is suffering from liver cancer that doctors say will kill him within six months.
Berlin courts, putting mercy above justice, halted the manslaughter trial against Honecker for killings at the Berlin Wall.
The former East German boss was driven to Berlin's Tegel Airport in a luxury sedan escorted by a dozen police cars with lights flashing. Curious bystanders lined the sidewalks.
Berlin's highest court said Tuesday that the trial violated Honecker's "human dignity" because he would die before a verdict. The trial started Nov. 12 and had been expected to continue for many more months.
"There is no justifiable reason for continuing with such a trial," said the judges, in a decision that angered many former East Germans.
"For the victims and for those who suffered under the regime, this is a slap in the face," said Berndt Seite, governor of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a region that had been under Honecker's rule.
Christian Fuehrer, the daring Lutheran pastor who helped guide East Germany's peaceful revolution in 1989, said he regretted that Honecker never showed any guilt.
"Honecker can leave the country without there ever being anywhere near a full discussion of the unjust system that he embodied," the Leipzig pastor said Wednesday.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB