A court in Berlin has awarded the former communist security chief of East Germany, Erich Mielke, about one-thousand-two-hundred dollars in compensation for the three months he spent in jail in 1991.

Mr Mielke, the former head of the East German secret police, the Stasi, was accused of ordering the shooting of people who attempted to flee to the West.

Charges were dropped last year after Mr Mielke, who is now ninety-one, was declared too ill to stand trial.

The court had earlier rejected the compensation claim, but Mr Mielke won on appeal.