The Trial of Lev Roitburd
On 25 August 1975 in Odessa a people’s court sentenced Lev Davidovich ROITBURD to two years in a labour camp of ordinary regime, under Article 188-1 pt. 2 of the UkSSR Criminal Code (‘Resisting a police officer or a member of the people’s volunteer police’).
L. D. Roitburd, born in 1936, married with a son of twelve, is a mechanical engineer by education and worked until 1972 as head of a section in a design office.
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In October 1972 Roitburd and his family submitted documents for emigration to Israel. During the official registration of the documents, he was forced to leave the design office. Recently he has worked as a metal worker. In July 1973 Roitburd’s application was refused ‘for security reasons’.
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On 1 June 1974 he took part in a Jewish demonstration in front of the ‘National’ hotel in Moscow. In July 1974 he took part in a six-day protest hunger strike. Roitburd’s signature appears on many letters and protests against the violation of the right of emigration. On 16 November 1974 a search was carried out in Roitburd’s flat. Literature in Hebrew. Israeli publications, prayer-books, note-books and correspondence were confiscated. Simultaneously, a criminal case on a charge of speculation was started against the Roitburds, though it was soon dropped for lack of evidence. In March 1975 Roitburd was given a warning by the KGB under the Decree of 25 December 1972.
After taking a holiday. Roitburd decided to go to Moscow with his son on 2 July. The day before, his boss told Roitburd that the KGB representative ‘did not advise’ him to absent himself from Odessa.
On the morning of 2 July, having handed in his luggage and booked his tickets, Roitburd and his son were waiting to board the aeroplane. At that moment a policeman came up to the people standing next to Roitburd and began to check their hand-luggage. Then he approached Roitburd, carefully searched his brief-case and documents and asked him ‘to come with me’. Asked for the reason, the policeman muttered indistinctly that he was searching for arms. There and then, Roitburd turned out his pockets and unfastened his trousers. The policeman went away. Then about ten policemen and KGB officials came up to him and ordered L. D. Roitburd to come with them. When the latter refused, the new arrivals fell on him, twisted his arms behind him and dragged him off to the police station. A KGB officer, Krasnov, who was walking beside Roitburd, called the Roitburds ‘stinking Zionists’ for all to hear. He also told them: “Instead of going to Israel, you’ll end up in the north. You’re as likely to see Israel as you are to see your own ears. A stone may fall on your head by accident, hooligans may attack you …” L. D. Roitburd was held in the police station until evening. In the evening, he was driven to some remand cells.
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On 22 August 1975 a lecture on “The ideology and practice of Zionism” was given in the ’red corner’ at Odessa airport. After the lecture it was announced that the trial of a Zionist hooligan would now take place and those present were asked not to disperse, in order that friends of the accused, who were preparing a political provocation, might not find their way into the premises. Some listeners who wanted to leave were not let out. ’Unneeded’ chairs were carried out of the hall.
Roitburd was accused of beating up the policeman Yatsyshin (31 years old and weighing over 90 kg) when he was detained, so that the former had even fallen down. In her speech the defence lawyer pointed out the contradictions of the witnesses (who even differed as to where, in what place, ’Roitburd beat up Yatsyshin’). Then, on the demand of the procurator, after the summing-up speeches, the court decided to renew the investigation and to summon additional witnesses.
On 25 August a second sitting of the court took place. The additional witnesses who had been summoned did not appear. The testimony of an inspector. Filippova, was read out (she herself was ill, as she had been on the first day), according to which Roitburd had sworn obscenely ’so that the passengers shied away’, and had resisted the policeman. The ‘sufferer’ Yatsyshin was heard again. He spoke uncertainly — he was prompted all the time from the hall. None the less, Yatsyshin’s evidence (Roitburd had struck him in the chest in the room to which he had been taken) once again contradicted Filippova’s evidence (Roitburd struck Yatsyshin on the head at the exit to the embarkation area).
The procurator demanded three years in a labour camp for the accused.
The defence lawyer Nimirinskaya pointed out that from the contradictions in the witnesses’ evidence, the reasons for Roitburd’s detention were not clear, and if the detention was illegal, then it was not important what had happened afterwards. The defence asked the court to refer the case back for further investigation, and meanwhile to release the accused in return for a written undertaking not to leave the area.
In his final speech Roitburd said that the trial was a reprisal for his activity in the struggle for emigration to Israel.
The trial took place in an atmosphere of ‘tape-recorder phobia’. On 22 August officials searched for a tape-recorder among the people who had gathered near the ‘red corner’. On 25 August, at the beginning of the session, Judge Boichenko asked everyone to hand over any tape-recorders they had. During a speech by the defence, the judge, having received a note, suddenly interrupted her speech and asked the wife of the accused, Liliya Abramovna Tenenboim, to hand him her handbag, since there was a tape-recorder in it. The judge was not ashamed of rummaging through the bag in full view of the public: only groceries and women’s articles turned out to be in it.
16 Soviet Jews sent a letter to a group of American senators who were in the USSR from 29 June to 5 July, in which they suggested that Roitburd’s arrest was connected with their meeting with participants in the Soviet Jewish emigration movement, and voiced the hope that they would intervene on Roitburd’s behalf.
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Trials for Refusal to do Military Service
MALKIN
On 26 August 1975 the people’s court of the Bauman district of Moscow examined a case in which Anatoly Vladimirovich MALKIN (b. 1954) was accused of ‘evading his call-up for active military service’. Judge Tsygankova presided at the trial. Procurator Podgorny acted for the prosecution, and S. V. Kalistratova for the defence.
On 23 June 1974 Anatoly Malkin, a third-year student at the Moscow steel and alloys institute, addressed a request for a character reference for emigration to Israel to the rector of the institute. On 24 June the committee of the Young Communist League expelled Malkin from the League, and his student group organized a petition for his expulsion from the institute. On 6 July Malkin was expelled from the institute. At the end of the summer of 1974 Malkin learned that he had received Israeli citizenship. On 7 August he sent a declaration relinquishing his Soviet citizenship to the USSR Supreme Soviet, but received no reply. On 26 August Malkin’s documents for emigration reached O VIR [the Visa and Registration Department]. In September 1974 Anatoly Malkin received through his father a summons to the military recruitment office for 14 October (as Malkin’s parents had objected sharply to his emigration, he had left home). On 14 October Malkin presented himself at the recruitment office and submitted a statement in which he said that on account of his intention to emigrate to Israel and his petition to relinquish Soviet citizenship he could not take military oath and serve in the Soviet Army. On 12 November 1974, in a statement addressed to the U S S R Minister of Defence, Malkin repeated his reasons for refusing to serve in the Soviet Army. On 25 December 1974 a criminal case was brought against Anatoly Malkin under Article 80, pt. 1 (RSFSR Criminal Code: ‘Evasion of call-up to active military service’). On 27 December OVIR refused Malkin permission to emigrate because a criminal case had been brought against Him. On 28 May 1975 he was arrested (CCE 36.10 [13]).
Malkin pleaded not guilty at his trial: “Knowing that I was already a citizen of the State of Israel, I considered that I was not only not obliged, but did not even have the right to serve in the Soviet Army, and, therefore, I refused to appear for the military call-up, I do not, therefore, consider myself guilty.’ In reply to a question from the procurator, Malkin said :”I think that my expulsion from university, call-up to the army and the instituting of criminal proceedings against me are reprisals for my desire to emigrate to Israel.”
The procurator demanded that Malkin should be given the maximum penalty of three years.
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DEFENCE
In her speech the defence lawyer said:
“The case is very simple as far as its development and its evidential materials are concerned, but very complex in its legal, purely juridical posing of the question of the presence or absence of a corpus delicti in Malkin’s actions.
“I awaited with interest the speech of my professional adversary, the State prosecutor, foreseeing a legal argument between the prosecution and the defence. Unfortunately, in his vivid and emotional speech the procurator apportioned an unjustifiably large amount of space and time to an analysis of evidence to the effect that Malkin evaded call-up to the army, and did not touch at all upon the subjective side of the crime. However, neither the accused nor the defence denies that Malkin refused to serve in the army, and this circumstance is incontestably established. The question is whether there is in Malkin’s actions a corpus delicti as envisaged in part 1 of Article 80 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, and the argument between the prosecution and the defence is only on this level.
“Before turning to a legal analysis, I must pause on the circumstances which characterize Malkin’s personality, and on the question of the extent of the penalty which the procurator is demanding. The State prosecutor is demanding deprivation of freedom for a term of three years, that is, the maximum punishment. He refers to circumstances aggravating Malkin’s alleged guilt. But not one of the circumstances indicated by the procurator is envisaged by law as an aggravating circumstance. Moreover, in his speech the procurator referred to certain circumstances which the court did not study and could not have studied. Thus the State prosecutor affirms that Malkin has disloyal convictions, that the views of Soviet people are alien to Malkin, that he does not like the Soviet system, that he wanted to ‘escape’ to another State. The procurator even declared that ‘Malkin hates our country’. The court did not study and could not have studied the question of Malkin’s convictions and opinions, since convictions and opinions are not a subject for court examination. There has not even been a mention during this court hearing of Malkin’s attitude to the Soviet system, of his love or hate for the country which he wished to abandon. Malkin did not want to ‘escape’, but to make use of his right to emigrate, and declared this in the form established by law to an official Soviet institution. A desire to leave the USSR by no means necessarily testifies to ‘disagreement with the system’, or, even more, to ‘hatred’. There may be, and no doubt are, other reasons prompting people to emigrate, in particular, religious convictions, family or other ties, and finally, simply a desire to live in another country.
“During this court hearing the chairman rightly interrupted Malkin with the remark that the question of his expulsion from the institute was not being examined by the court. However, the procurator considered that he had the right to state that Malkin’s expulsion from the institute was justified. 1 will touch on this question only as it affects Malkin’s personality. One cannot decipher in the order of 6 July 1974 in what way Malkin’s behaviour was unworthy of a Soviet student. However, in the character reference given to Malkin by the institute, it is recorded that his amoral behaviour was expressed in double-dealing, deceiving his comrades, and insincerity. These are certainly negative features. But how has the presence of these negative features in Malkin been established? In the tenth class at school he had a positive character reference, and exceptional honesty was noted as a basic feature of his character. The evidence of his comrades in his group at the institute, during the pre-trial investigation (see testimony of Pogosyan and Zolotoi), states that his decision to emigrate to Israel was not unexpected, that he had not concealed this resolve! But not a word is said about either double-dealing or insincerity, Nor was anything said about these negative qualities at the discussion of Malkin’s personal case by the committee of the Young Communist League. 1 shall not enter into a discussion of what is ‘social chauvinism’. I do not know, and in general I do not understand such a combination of terms, nor what relation chauvinism can have to Malkin. But apart from ‘social chauvinism’, religious views and the intention of emigrating to Israel, no other reproaches were addressed to Malkin. So why was Malkin expelled from the institute? And what is the basis for the allusion in his character reference to double-dealing and insincerity? Now, if Malkin, in an effort to obtain higher education, had concealed his intention of emigrating to Israel, and his religious views, from his comrades and from officials, then there would have been insincerity, deception and amorality. Up to 24 June 1974, during the whole of h’s short life, not a single reproach had been levelled at Malkin. Therefore, we cannot consider that his character has been evaluated negatively. We cannot but notice that Malkin could not work from the moment of his expulsion from the institute to the moment of his arrest, only because he had not received a reply from OVIR to his application to emigrate to Israel, and that he did not want to and could not hide the fact that this application was currently being considered.
“The procurator asserts that Malkin fell under some kind of influence of certain people, although there is certainly nothing about this in the case materials, and he is inclined to consider this a circumstance aggravating guilt. If Malkin is so easily inclined to fall under other people’s influence, then why from the point of view of the State prosecutor is such a long sentence necessary to reform him? However, Malkin is not referring to anyone’s influence as a mitigating circumstance, and the witness Zolotoi has characterized him as a resolute person who thinks over his decisions carefully.
“Failure to appear in response to an investigator’s summons is not considered by law to be a circumstance aggravating guilt. However, the prosecutor has not presented to the court sufficient proof that evasion of the trial and the investigation took place. What ’illegal flat’, what ’illegal situation’ is the prosecutor talking about? Malkin has not lived with his parents in the place where he was registered since July 1974, that is, for a long time not only before the instituting of criminal proceedings, but also before his call-up to the army. The accused’s father has confirmed this. Why did he leave? That is quite clear. He had a disagreement with his parents. Anatoly loves his father and mother, and he cannot and will not quarrel with them. But he also cannot and will not alter the decision which precipitated the disagreement. Hundreds, possibly thousands of Muscovites live in Moscow for months not in the place where they are registered, but with friends, acquaintances or relatives. More often than not, this is the result of family disagreements. And when someone lives like this in another house, another street, and not the one where he is registered, it is not considered ‘illegal’, it does not entail administrative responsibility, it is permitted by the instructions on registration in Moscow. Malkin did not receive the summonses to the procuracy. At the pre-trial investigation Malkin’s father testified that he did not speak to his son about the summonses to the procuracy. At the trial here he said first of all that he had informed his son about the summonses, but when this question was made more precise, he used a wording which indicated doubt and uncertainty: T think I did tell my son about the summonses to the procuracy.’ Exactly when and under what circumstances he told him, he does not remember. In this situation, we cannot consider it as an established fact that Malkin tried to evade the investigators.
“Malkin is only 20 years old, and this is the first time he has come before a court.
“All that has been said would give me a serious basis, if there were no argument about Malkin’s guilt, to assert that the procurator is demanding an excessively severe penalty and to ask for some mitigation. But my professional duty obliges me to set before the court the question of acquitting Malkin because of the absence of a corpus delicti in his actions. While admitting the fact of his call-up to the army, Malkin pleads not guilty to having committed a crime, asserting that he had no intention of breaking the law on compulsory military service.
“I am far from intending to turn my speech into a lecture on the theory of corpus delicti. But the position of the accused obliges me as a lawyer to give a legal analysis of the corpus delicti concept. There are four indispensable elements in a corpus delicti: the subject of the crime is present — Malkin, a responsible adult bearing responsibility for his actions. Here the defence has no quarrel with the prosecution. The object of the crime (the second element of a corpus delicti), stipulated in part 1 of Article 80 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, is the interests of the State. Here too the defence has no quarrel with the prosecution. The objective side of the crime, that is, the actions stipulated by the law, is also not disputed by the defence. But it is also essential to have a subjective side of the crime in the form of intention or carelessness, and the absence of even one of the elements \ have enumerated signifies the absence of a corpus delicti. So it is on this fourth, obligatory element that the whole argument between the defence and the prosecution is concentrated.
“The crime stipulated in part 1 of Article 80 may be committed with intent. To what end was Malkin’s intent directed? With respect to this aspect, the court cannot fail to be interested in the reasons for which Malkin refused to present himself for call-up to the army. He says that he is a citizen of the State of Israel and therefore considers that he is not only not obliged, but does not have the right, to serve in the Soviet Army. Inasmuch as that, up to the moment of the action which led to the charge against him, he had still not received a reply from the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, it must be admitted that he was a citizen of the USSR. But he had already been accepted as a citizen of Israel, and, consequently, was a person with dual citizenship. With all due respect for my legal adversary, the procurator, I must say that he is mistaken when he says that there are not and cannot be persons with dual citizenship. Legal concepts regarding persons with dual citizenship exist both in our legislation and in our specialized juridical literature. I can name a series of conventions concluded with other countries by the Soviet government in the fifties and sixties on the procedure for the elimination of dual citizenship, which is an admission that this phenomenon, though undesirable, does exist. (The lawyer gives the dates of the conventions, of their ratification, and of the issues of the Bulletin of the Supreme Soviet where the conventions were published.) It is typical of all these conventions that the basic instrument for eliminating dual citizenship is the choice of the citizenship of one State or the other by the person who holds dual citizenship. The Course of International Law published by Nauka publishing-house in 1967 under the editorship of Professor Chkhikvadze says that one and the same person may be a citizen of two states. (The lawyer quotes the literature referred to.) Professor Lisovsky’s monograph, published in 1970, also mentions dual citizenship. (The lawyer quotes it.) The Law on Compulsory Military Service does not mention persons with dual citizenship, and this gap in the law favours the subjective belief of Malkin, who knows this law, that he does not have the right to serve in the Soviet Army. The question of military service by people with dual citizenship is not regulated by law (this is what the defence had in mind in speaking of a gap in the law). Therefore Malkin, considering himself to be a person with dual citizenship, was convinced (subjectively) that the law on universal military service did not extend to him, and consequently he did not have the intention of breaking that law. Even if this is an error, it is an honest error, the result of a gap in the law, not the result of ignorance of the law. Such an honest error excludes intention to break the law, and this means that the subjective side of the crime, and consequently a corpus delicti, is lacking. These are the legal bases in accordance with which I ask for Malkin’s acquittal.”
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SENTENCE
Sentence of the court: “Malkin A. V. is found guilty of breaking the law on universal military service. Since Malkin A. V. has committed a dangerous crime, and also in connection with the fact that the attempt to emigrate to another State is a means of evading military service, the court sentences Malkin A. V. to three years’ imprisonment in labour camps of ordinary regime.”
The smallest premises in the court building were chosen for Malkin’s trial, although nearby a room three times larger assigned to judge Tsygankova was empty the whole day. Malkin’s friends, who arrived an hour before the beginning of the trial, were told that all the places were already taken, There were, in fact, people in the hall, but there were also spare places.
Before the beginning of the trial, A. Malkin’s father, V. Malkin, a doctor of chemical science and a lecturer in the same institute where Anatoly had studied, was granted a meeting with his son. Malkin senior promised his son that he would be released from the court room if he renounced his intention of emigrating to Israel and agreed to serve in the Soviet Army. After the trial Malkin senior served a complaint against the defence lawyer Kalistratova to the Presidium of the Moscow Bar, for ‘using the lawyers’ platform to preach emigration’ and also for not making use of every opportunity for his son’s defence — in particular, she had not stated that Anatoly Malkin had ‘fallen under a hostile influence’.
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SLININ
In 1974, in Kharkov, Alexander Slinin (b. 1955) was given three years in ordinary regime camps under the corresponding Article of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR.
In 1972 A. Slinin entered Kharkov University. When he learned of the introduction of the ‘tax on education’, he left the university. In March 1973, when he was 18, Slinin applied to emigrate to Israel. He was refused on the grounds that ‘the country’s labour force is below strength’. Slinin was arrested on 29 April 1974. He is now in this camp: penal institution YaE — 308/26.
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VINAROV
In summer 1975, in Kiev, Yakov Vinarov was given three years in camp for the same reason. He applied to emigrate to Israel and was refused. He was arrested on 5 June 1975.
102 Soviet Jews from 12 cities signed an appeal addressed to 19 members of the U S Congress on 30 August. The appeal said that the real reason for the trials of Roitburd, Malkin and Vinarov was the authorities’ urge ‘to reduce to naught the obligations they had taken on themselves in Helsinki to observe fundamental rights and freedom of the individual’.
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The Trial of Mukhametshin
From 4 to 7 August 1975 the Moscow City Court heard the case in which Ganibari (Boris) Mukhametshin (CCE 34.7) was charged with actions covered by Articles 70 and 88 (‘Violation of the currency regulations’) of the RSFSR Criminal Code.
Under Article 70 Mukhametshin was charged with producing and exhibiting anti-Soviet posters, disseminating The Gulag Archipelago, and taking part in anti-Soviet conversations.
He was charged under Article 88 with selling 45 dollars.
Mukhametshin fully admitted his guilt. He stated when he had made the posters; to whom he had shown them and when; from whom and when he had obtained two copies of The Gulag Archipelago’, to whom he had given them to read; and to whom he had sold the dollars.
The witnesses Ladyzhensky, Ivashkina, Luzgina and Fedyakina agreed that Mukhametshin had shown them the posters. The court considered proven that the defendant had shown the posters to Bondareva, Arutyunyan, Dryuchin and Lev Bruni, although these people either denied this (Bondareva) or refused to give evidence (CCE 35.10 [31]). It was argued in the indictment that the defendant had no reason to accuse them falsely.
The witnesses Ladyzhensky, Ivashkina, Luzgina, Zlatkovsky and Igor Genkin confirmed that they had received The Gulag Archipelago from Mukhametshin (at the request of the investigator Ladyzhensky had handed over his Gulag Archipelago to the KGB; Luzgina had burned the book after Mukhametshin’s arrest). The court considered proven that the defendant had given The Gulag Archipelago to Bondareva and Dryuchin, although Bondareva denied this and Dryuchin refused to give evidence. The reason given in the indictment was the same as before.
The court found the charge concerning anti-Soviet conversations to be unsubstantiated.
The indictment noted that Mukhametshin’s anti-Soviet views had been formed under the influence of Western radio broadcasts.
The court sentenced Mukhametshin under Article 70 to five years of strict-regime and two years’ exile; under Article 88 to 3 years’ strict-regime and confiscation of property. The total sentence was: five years of strict regime, two years of exile, and confiscation of property.
This is the first instance known to the Chronicle where the dissemination of The Gulag Archipelago had been judged a criminal act. The Chronicle does not know whether or not it was proven at the trial that The Gulag Archipelago is anti-Soviet or libellous in character.
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The Trial of Isaac Gilyutin
From 15 to 18 August 1975 the people’s court of the Moscow district of Leningrad examined the case in which I. B. Gilyutin was charged with attempted smuggling (Articles 78 and 15, RSFSR Criminal Code).
Isaak Borisovich GILYUTIN (b. 1939) Cand.Sc. (Technical Science) and a specialist in mathematical modelling, used to work as a senior scientific researcher at the Leningrad Academy of Ice Technology.
Gilyutin, his wife and two-year-old child, had received permission to emigrate to Israel. When, on 17 June, their luggage was being examined, the customs officers accused him of ‘having failed to declare in writing or to inform customs officers by word of mouth before the luggage was examined, that it contained antiques, works of art and silver-work objects (from the official ‘Decision on Smuggling Case Number 49/75’). The reference was to 16 lithographs, one engraving, and two crystal containers in silver holders. All these objects were lying unconcealed in the suitcases presented for inspection at the customs.
The Leningrad procurator’s office for transport offences initiated criminal charges against Gilyutin. In the charge sheet, signed by V. E. Kirillov, senior investigator at the procurator’s office, the above-mentioned facts are described as follows: Gilyutin ‘attempted to smuggle out contraband on a large scale through the illegal use of customs forms’. It was also stated in the charge sheet that Gilyutin ‘hid the said objects from customs officials’ and ‘tried to take them illegally beyond the borders of the USSR…’
According to some supplementary explanatory note (which is not in the Criminal Code, nor even in the official Commentary to the Criminal Code), ‘contraband on a large scale’ starts at 1,000 roubles. T. M. Sokolina, an expert invited to take part by the investigator, explained that the lithographs ‘subject to expert examination’ were ‘original works of art’ and priced them at 70-80 roubles each. The expert priced the engraving at 20 roubles, stating that it was not ‘an original work of art’ and that it did not have ‘artistic value’. (In the indictment the engraving no longer formed part of the charges against Gilyutin, but its value was included in the total value of the ‘contraband’!) At the trial the defendant and his lawyer proved from the official records of the Arts Council, that the official selling price of the original lithographs listed in the charges was much lower than that stated.
As regards the ‘illegal use of customs forms’, the defence lawyer proved, on the basis of the official Commentary to the RSFSR Criminal Code (p. 179), that Gilyutin had not been in possession of any ‘document obtained by deception’.
In his speech the prosecutor listed the extenuating circumstances: the obvious ignorance of the defendant about the true price and value of the lithographs and containers; the fact that he had not tried to conceal anything from inspection; the fact that his infringement of the law had been unpremeditated; and so on. He asked that the defendant be sentenced to years’ imprisonment, on the basis of Article 43 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (‘Imposition of a milder sentence than that prescribed by law’).
Defending lawyer Koisman demanded his client’s acquittal.
The court sentenced Gilyutin to one year in an ordinary-regime labour camp and confiscation of property. He was taken into custody only on the day of sentence.
The trial was held in a genuinely open court.
Judge Afanasev-Lysenko behaved very rudely, constantly interrupted the defendant and his lawyer, disallowed all questions calling into doubt the charges and the expert’s opinions, and shouted at the defence lawyer. When the defence lawyer said he had an official reply to an enquiry which had been made by his legal office, the judge asked him to hand over the reply.
On hearing the lawyer’s refusal — “I shall give it in my own time” — he shouted, “Are you holding a stone behind your back? Indeed! Just imagine: there he sits, right in front of me, and he’s holding a stone behind his back! You’ve no right!”
During the defendant’s closing statement, some man suddenly appeared from the judicial conference room. During the discussion on the sentence he was also in the conference room, going out a few times for 10 to 15 minutes and then returning. At the request of the public he showed his papers (his surname was Leshin), and stated that he was a people’s assessor.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 