From 2 to 24 December, 1974 the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR held a trial arising out of Case No. 345. The presiding judge was A. Bataitis; the state prosecutor was Bakucionis, the First Deputy Procurator of the Lithuanian SSR.
The accused were:
Petras Plumpa (b. 1939). From 1958 to 1965 he had already served a seven-year term of imprisonment under Article 68, para. 1 (Lithuanian SSR Criminal Code). He was arrested on 19 November 1973, charged under Articles 68 (para. 2) and 70 (= Articles 70 & 72, RSFSR Criminal Code), and with forging a passport.
Povilas Petronis (b. 1911). Arrested on 19 November 1973 and charged under Articles 68 (para. 1) and 70.
Jonas Stasaitis (b. 1921). Arrested on 4 December 1973, Article 199-1 (= Article 190-1, RSFSR Criminal Code).
Virgilijus Jaugelis (b. 1948). Arrested on 4 April 1974, Article 199-1.
A. Patrubavicius (b. 1935). Arrested on 20 November 1973; charged under the Article ‘violation of the rules of traffic safety’, and Articles 68, 70 and 199-1 (Lithuanian Criminal Code = Articles 70, 72 & 190-1, RSFSR Criminal Code.)
The arrests and investigations were carried out in connection with Case 345 (CCE 30.11 & 32).
The defendants (apart from Patrubavicius) were charged with duplicating and disseminating the following ‘anti-Soviet literature’: A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church, several Lithuanian books and translations of Russian samizdat materials.
In addition, Plumpa and Stasaitis were charged with making an ‘Era’ copying machine and a duplicator; and Jaugelis was charged with having collected signatures for the ‘Memorandum’ of Lithuanian Catholics (CCE 24). Patrubavicius, as the trial evidence shows, helped Plumpa and Petronis to reproduce A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church and other literature, but at the trial he was charged only with a traffic offence.
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In answer to the judge’s question, Jaugelis pleaded not guilty. Plumpa, Petronis and Stasaitis pleaded ‘guilty in part’. Patrubavicius pleaded guilty.
When the defendants were asked to give their nationality, Plumpa described himself as ‘a stateless Lithuanian’, Stasaitis said he was ‘a Lithuanian, a citizen of Lithuania’, Jaugelis said he was ‘a citizen of Lithuania’. Petronis and Patrubavicius said they were citizens of the U S S R. In explanation of his answer, Plumpa said that after his release from a labour camp, he could not get permission to register anywhere as a resident, nor could he obtain permanent employment. Before his marriage, wanting to ensure a peaceful, normal life for himself and his family, he had changed his surname in his passport to ‘Pluiras’. During the trial Plumpa explained that he had hoped that if his forgery were discovered he would serve a two-year sentence and emerge from the camps not as a ‘political offender’ but as a ‘criminal’, which he believed would have ensured him the protection of the authorities.
The prosecutor, in his speech on 16 December, called for Plumpa to be sentenced to five years in a strict-regime labour camp for ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’ and three years (or forging his passport; he also asked that these terms should run consecutively to make a total of eight years. (The Article of the Criminal Code referring to sentences ‘for multiple offences’ allowed such a ‘combination’ in this case, he said.) The procurator asked for Petronis to be given five years in a strict-regime camp, and Jaugelis three years in an ordinary- regime camp. In the case of Stasaitis, the procurator proposed that his frank evidence and acknowledgement of his mistakes be taken into account: he asked the court to sentence him to two years in an ordinary-regime camp. For Patrubavicius, the procurator proposed one and a half years in an ordinary-regime camp.
Petronis’s lawyer spoke of his client’s humanity and selflessness, of his desire to do good, and of other people’s respect for him, especially for his active participation in the campaign against alcoholism. The lawyer asked the court to take into account the fact that Petronis had openly given evidence concerning his production of religious literature and had expressed regret that he had distributed A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church. He had not seen anything anti-Soviet in this publication and he had no anti-Soviet aims in what he did. The attorney asked that the actions of Petronis be re- classified as falling under Article 199-1, and also made reference to his client’s age and weak state of health.
Stasaitis’s lawyer asked the court to take into account his client’s admission that he had made a grave error in reproducing A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church. He also asked the court to take into consideration his client’s cooperation during the investigation. In concluding his speech, the attorney expressed the wish that his client would see in the New Year together with his family. Patrubavicius lawyer expressed amazement that his client’s case, concerning a traffic offence, was being included in a trial of this kind. He asked that the court limit his client’s sentence to the 13 months he had already spent in pre-trial detention.
At the beginning of the trial Plumpa had refused the services of a lawyer, declaring that in cases of this kind lawyers were of no help and only made matters worse, and that the money he would have to pay a lawyer was needed by his family. Jaugelis also declined the services of a lawyer. Plumpa and Jaugelis said that their defender would be the Lord God.
In his defence speech Plumpa stated that during the pre-trial investigation threats had been made that his case would be ‘loaded’ in order to give him a 10-year sentence. He explained that after 1965 he had been involved in religious, not nationalist, activities and had not set out to undermine Soviet power. He did not consider A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church to be an anti-Soviet publication.
After the judge had interrupted Jaugelis’s defence speech at the very beginning, Jaugelis declined to defend himself any further.
In his concluding statement Petronis said that he had not taken part in anti-Soviet activity. He admitted that his distribution of A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church had been a mistake, but he asked which other publications allowed free debate with the atheists. Petronis said that the main purpose of his life was apostolic activity, trying to bring some good to people.
The charges of slander were unjustified and he found them painful. Therefore Articles 68 and 70 were not relevant to his actions. Referring to his feeble health, Petronis asked to be allowed to spend his sentence in an ordinary- regime camp.
Stasaitis, in his concluding statement, said that A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church was of no benefit to the religious life of believers; and that the facts contained in it were subjective and biased. In pre-trial detention Stasaitis had understood that nowadays the need was not for an intensification of the struggle against atheists, but for a rapprochement with them.
In his closing speech Plumpa asked how long the punishment which he had been undergoing since his release from the first camp would continue. He exclaimed: ‘What kind of ideological work could be harmed by my work in the Vilnius sanitation department where I carried clay around in a bucket?’
In concluding, he expressed the hope that his family, at least, would escape persecution.
Jaugelis, in his closing statement, accused the Soviet authorities and the atheists of persecuting Catholics. The atheist authorities called believers illiterates and remnants of the past, did not allow them to bring up their children in accordance with their convictions, and closed their churches. ‘Who will speak out in our defence, if all the government posts are filled by atheists?’ he asked.
Jaugelis said that ‘people are not brave enough to be guided by truth and justice; they do what government officials tell them to. Millions of martyrs have suffered and died for Christ and for preaching His gospel. Let the atheists not imagine that today there is no-one like that left: there are still those who are not afraid to suffer for the truth, for religion and the Church.’
On 24 December the court gave its verdict. In the verdict it was stated to be a crime that Plumpa had taught people how to bind prayer-books. A number of charges against Plumpa were struck from the indictment, as they were not proved. The court sentenced Plumpa to five years’ imprisonment under Articles 68 (paragraph 2) and 70 of the Lithuanian Criminal Code and to three years for forging his passport, making a total punishment of eight years in a strict-regime camp. Taking into account the advanced age and weak health of Petronis, the court sentenced him to four years in a strict- regime camp. Jaugelis received a sentence of two years in an ordinary-regime camp. Patrubavicius was sentenced to 13 months, and Stasaitis to one year; both of them having already spent this term in detention during the pre-trial investigation, they were released.
The details of the trial are given in A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church, number 13. It is notable that although during pre-trial investigation and the trial much attention was devoted to the production and distribution of prayer-books (for example it emerged that Petronis has produced 20,000 copies and had managed to distribute 16,000 of them), and although the prayer-books were confiscated during the searches, this activity was not openly formulated as a charge.
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