The clenched-fist salute and the pinched smile were familiar, but the performance was mere bravado. Erich Honecker, 79, once the leader of the defunct German Democratic Republic, made a small show of defiance as he walked out of the Chilean embassy in Moscow after seven months spent in asylum there. Only a small crowd of supporters were on hand as he left for Berlin, where he can expect to stand trial on 49 charges of manslaughter. The indictments stem from the deaths of East Germans trying to flee across the old inter-German border, a zone that Honecker ordered fortified with mines...
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