<<No 20 : 2 July 1971>>

On 21 June 1971 the Moldavian SSR Supreme Court, with D. D. Bordyuzha, member of the Supreme Court, presiding, began hearing the case [¹] against nine co-defendants, charged under the following Articles:

17-61, 67 & 69 and 119 (Moldavian SSR Criminal Code = Articles 64, 70 & 72 and 89, RSFSR Code, the last being concerned with “The appropriation of State property”)

• A.S. VOLOSHIN under Articles 17-61, 67 & 69 and 119;
• A.Z. GALPERIN (b. 1946) under the same Articles;
• A.M. GOLDFELD (b. 1946) under the same Articles;
• Kh.Ya. KIZHNER (also known as Kirschner) under the same Articles.
• S.A. LEVIT (b. 1947) under Articles 67 & 69;
• D. Ya. RABINOVICH (b. 1946) under Article 119;
• L.A. TRAKHTENBERG under Articles 67 & 69 and 119;
• D.I. CHERNOGLAZ (Leningrad; b. 1939) under Articles 17-61, 67 & 69 and 119;
• G.Z. SHUR (Leningrad; b. 1936) under the same Articles.

The state prosecutor was A. P. Poluektov, Senior Assistant Procurator of the Moldavian Republic.

Counsel for the defence were T. Ya. Barantseva, Yu. I. Luri (defended Kuznetsov at the “hijackers” trial, CCE 17.6-1), Ya.S. Rozhansky, V. G. Stryapunin (defended Yagman, CCE 20.1) and others.

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THE CHARGES

Voloshin, Galperin, Goldfeld and Kizhner were charged

“that in company with Dymshits, Butman and others, who have already been convicted by the Leningrad City Court, they took part in preparations to seize a civil aeroplane in order to cross the border in it” (Article 17-61, Moldavian SSR Criminal Code = Article 17-64, RSFSR Code);

“Together with defendants D. I. Chernoglaz, G. Z. Shur, S. A. Levit and L. A. Trakhtenberg they involved other citizens in their criminal activity, preparing and circulating literature of anti-Soviet content” (Articles 67 & 69, Moldavian SSR Code). The literature referred to was Exodus by Leon Uris, The Six-Day War, Iton Nos. 1 and 2 and My Glorious Brothers by Howard Fast;

“With the object of duplicating literature of this sort, defendants Rabinovich, Galperin and Voloshin stole an Era electrographic duplicating machine from the Moldavian branch of the USSR Tsentrosoyuz Institute of Design” (Article 119, Moldavian SSR Code).

(The indictment is quoted here from the newspaper Soviet Moldavia, 22 June 1971.)

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PLEAS AND STATEMENTS

Voloshin, Galperin, Kizhner, Levit and Rabinovich pleaded guilty. (Voloshin’s evidence had assisted in the investigation.)

Goldfeld pleaded guilty in part, Trakhtenberg not guilty under Articles 67 and 69.

Chernoglaz pleaded not guilty under Articles 17-61 and 119, and stated that if there had been infringements of Articles 67 and 69, then he had acted without malice aforethought and without anti-Soviet objectives.

Shur pleaded not guilty. He said:

“The Kishinyov court is not competent to try me; I have never been to Kishinyov, not a single witness to the items in the indictment relating to me is a resident of Kishinyov.

“Not once since the time I was transferred from Leningrad to the Kishinyov investigation prison (autumn 1970) have I been questioned on the case of the Era machine theft. Investigator Kulikov, in the presence of the Procurator, proposed that I should plead guilty and be released from custody in the court-room; otherwise I would get five to seven years’ imprisonment.”

Shur refused to co-operate in the trial and declared a hunger strike. His final address was postponed for a day because of a fainting fit.

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WITNESSES

Four of the witnesses summoned to the court (Makhotko, Freizer and two others) refused to testify. Witness Gruman (Kishinyov) told the court that he was prepared to testify in his native language. To applause from the public the Procurator demanded that proceedings should be taken against them for refusing to give witnesses’ testimony.

Witnesses M. Dymshits and M. Korenblit (convicted by the Leningrad City Court and brought to Kishinyov under guard) continued to maintain that their reasons for preparing to seize an aeroplane were the groundless refusals of permission to emigrate to Israel.

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PROSECUTION

In his address the Procurator dwelt on the attempt to hi-jack an aeroplane (“the majority of the defendants took an active part in the organisation of the attack on the aeroplane with the object of betraying the Fatherland”).

The defendants, said Procurator Poluektov, had created an anti-Soviet organisation under the guise of an ulpan (an association for the study of Hebrew and the history and culture of Israel). The Era duplicator had been used not to produce Writ text-books, as the defendants maintained, but to print anti-Soviet literature.

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SENTENCE

The sentences, pronounced on 30 June, were [²]:

Chernoglaz, five years of strict-regime corrective-labour camps; Goldfeld, four years; Voloshin, Kizhner, Levit, Trakhtenberg and Shur, two years; Galperin, two-and-a-half years; and Rabinovich, one year.

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NOTES

1. For other accounts of this trial see the official TASS agency dispatches of 22, 24-26 and 28-30 June, and the UPI dispatches of 21-22, 25-27 and 29-30 June.
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2. Later that year the Chronicle reported where those convicted at this, and the other three Jewish trials, were being held (CCE 22.4 [12]). L. Korenblit, Dreizner and Boguslavsky were released in 1973 (CCE 30.14 [11]).
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