Eighteen months ago, the Bukhara Jews, brothers Amner and Amnon Zavurov, who were living in the town of Shakhrisabz in Uzbekistan, received permission (together with their families) to emigrate to Israel.
They paid all the money stipulated, including 500 roubles each for compulsory rejection of Soviet citizenship; handed in all their Soviet documents (passports, workbooks, etc.); and received visas to leave. Not long before their departure their visas were unexpectedly taken away from them without any explanation.
The local authorities tried to return their Soviet passports to them, but the brothers categorically refused them. They received no reply to their numerous complaints in connection with the visas that had been withdrawn, nor to their requests to be given documents entitling them to live in the USSR as persons without citizenship.
The new owner of their house, Davydov, allowed them to live in the house temporarily.
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In November 1976 the brothers Zavurov both received 12 days jail sentences for “petty hooliganism”. The reason was a quarrel with Davydov which took place in their room without other people present.
On 20 December 1976 Amner Zavurov was arrested once again. A criminal case was brought against him under Articles 199 (“violation of the residence rules”), 204, pt. 2 (“hooliganism”), and 220 (“leading a parasitic way of life for a long period”) of the Uzbek SSR Criminal Code. He was charged under Article 204 for his quarrel with Davydov, for which he had already served 12 days. This quarrel was portrayed as a fight.
On 3 January 1977 the father of Amner Zavurov made an agreement with a Moscow lawyer. He informed the investigator of this. The lawyer himself also announced the fact officially.
Meanwhile there appeared in the case file a receipt for the serving of a bill of indictment on Amner Zavurov on 8 January 1977. Amner Zavurov maintains that the receipt is forged: the signature and date on it are not in his handwriting. According to him, he received the bill of indictment only on 11 January, less than 24 hours before the case was heard: according to the law the bill of indictment should be presented no less than three days in advance of the trial.
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On 12 January 1977 the people’s court of the town of Shakhrisabz heard the case of Amner Zavurov.
The accused asked for the case to be postponed until the arrival of his lawyer. The court had in its possession a telegram from the lawyer saying that he had been commissioned to conduct the case in court. None the less, the court refused Zavurov’s plea and appointed its own lawyer. The judicial session was conducted in the Uzbek language, which the accused knows poorly. There was no translator. The court found Amner Zavurov guilty on all three counts and sentenced him to three years imprisonment.
On 20 January 1977 the American lawyer Martin Garbus, who was in the USSR as a tourist, went to the USSR Procurator’s Office.
He was received by Procurator Sagrina. As an introduction, Garbus said a little about himself: he is a professor of law at Columbia University and a member of an American organization for the defence of human rights; in this capacity he was involved in the cases of Angela Davis and of Spanish Communists condemned by Franco, and of the persecution of Communists in India; he had conducted negotiations with Pinochet on the fate of Chilean political prisoners, in particular of Luis Corvalan (CCE 43.1).
Sagrina politely rebuked the visitor for not warning them of his visit in advance: the USSR Procurator-General Rudenko himself might have received him.
Then Garbus produced an American newspaper with an article about the case of Amner Zavurov and told Sagrina about the investigation and the trial. Sagrina said that if so many violations had really been committed, it would be reconsidered.
“When can I find out what’s been decided?”
“In about two months by telephone.”
“Does an innocent man in the Soviet Union really have to wait two months in prison until his case is dealt with?”
“Well, phone in a month’s time.”
*A whole month?”
“Well, in two weeks’ time.”
At the appointed time Garbus, then back in the USA, tried to telephone the number given to him but there was no reply either that day or subsequently.
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On 10 February 1977 an appeal hearing of the case took place in the Kashkadarinskaya Regional Court.
The Moscow lawyer was allowed to study the case only on the day of the appeal. The lawyer was forbidden to use the services of an interpreter: Umarov, a member of the Regional Court, who spoke Russian poorly, translated for him. As a result of the appeal, the charge under Article 220 was dropped from the verdict. The punishment remained as before.
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On 16 February 1977, 58 Jewish activists sent a telegram to the USSR Procurator-General and to the Uzbek Procurator’s Office. They request immediate intervention and the re-establishment of legality.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 