A former officer in communist East Germany’s secret service, known as the Stasi, has appealed his murder conviction over a 1974 deadly shooting at a busy Cold War-era border crossing in divided Berlin. The former officer, now 80 years old, was convicted by a court in Berlin on Monday and sentenced to 10 years in prison. A court spokeswoman confirmed on Friday that he had lodged an appeal. German law usually carries a life sentence for murder, but the court ruled that the more lenient law of the former communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in force at the time should be applied instead. A …