Schießbefehl recommended guards use firearms to stop unauthorised border crossings in the direction of West Germany and procedure to conceal incidents from the public. Various Schießbefehl orders were issued, and their instructions to prevent East Germans leaving were not officially legal until 1982 and in violation of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with an estimated 300 to 400 people having died at the Inner German border during its existence. After German Reunification in 1990, East German leader Erich Honecker was indicted by the Berlin District Court on charges of mass murder stemming from the Schießbefehl orders, but his failing health and legal disputes over jurisdiction caused his trial to be abandoned.