At the Leningrad aeroplane trial in December 1970 (CCE 17.6-1) defendant Josif M. Mendelevich was charged, amongst other things, with having written the articles “On Assimilation’’ and “The Jews Are Ceasing to be Silent” and defendant Leib G. Khnokh, with possessing an appeal “of anti-Soviet content” entitled “Your Native Tongue”.
These counts of the indictment are described as proven in the verdict pronounced by the Leningrad City Court on 24 December 1970 and in the ruling of the RSFSR Supreme Court of 31 December 1970 [1].
*
Three former Soviet (now Israeli) citizens Mikhail Zand (CCE 19.7, CCE 20.11 [24]), V. Meniker and M. Gelfond [2] gave written evidence, under oath in accordance with legally established procedure, before Leonard Schroeter, chief legal assistant to the chief Israeli government adviser on legal affairs.
On 26 May 1972 this text was sent to USSR Procurator-General R. Rudenko.
From this evidence it is clear that:
(1) The author of the text entitled “On Assimilation” is Mikhail Zand.
(2) Zand was the author of the first part of the article “The Jews Have Ceased to be Silent”; the second part of the same article was written not by Mendelevich, but another person (whom they do not name) known to Zand, Moniker and Gelfond.
(3) The article “Thy Native Tongue” (its exact title was misquoted in the verdict and the ruling) was written by Zand. It is not of an anti-Soviet nature, neither are three other articles known to Zand whose titles include the words “native tongue”.
*
In connexion with this statement the corresponding counts in the indictment, verdict and ruling cannot be imputed to Josif Mendelevich or Leib (Arieh) Khnokh.
The indubitable falsity of these accusations calls into question the objectivity of the trial held in Leningrad on 24 December 1970 as a whole, and therefore, in the opinion of M. Zand, there should be a retrial.
Zand expresses his willingness, “in the event of a review, at an open judicial hearing, of the case of those convicted in Leningrad on 24 December 1970 … to come to the USSR at the summons of Soviet legal organs and give additional evidence on the essence and the details” of his written testimony.
*
===================================================
NOTES
- See the record of the trial in Exodus No. 4, published in English as a booklet in 1971 by the Institute of Jewish Affairs (London).
↩︎ - See Gelfond’s appeal in Exodus No. 4.
For Meniker’s letter of 1966 in defence of Sinyavsky and Daniel, see M. Hayward and L. Labedz, Trial (London, 1967); for his protest about the Galanskov-Ginzburg trial, see CCE 2.1 [48].
↩︎
========================
A Chronicle of Current Events 