<< No 33 : 10 December 1974 >>

3 ENTRIES

1.

Alexander Chekalin: Verdict (1971)

Case No. 6-74    (secret)

In the name of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, on 15 June 1971 the Voroshilovgrad Regional Court, consisting of: V. A. Yaresko as chairman and K. A. Baranova and M. F. Drozhzhina as people’s assessors; with T. M Golubnichei as secretary, and with prosecutor V. I. Zimarin and defence counsel N. M. Sokohkova participating:

— after investigating, in closed session, in the city of Voroshilovgrad, the charges against Chekalin, Alexander Nikolayevich (b. 19 December 1938), a native of Slyud-Rudnik, Udereisk district, Krasnoyarsk Region (Krai);

— a Russian, Soviet citizen, not a Party member, ten years of education, no previous convictions, married, with a dependant son (b. 1962), resident in the town of Lysychansk, Voroshilovgrad Region (136/5 Karl Marx St), worked as a metal-fitter in the Lysychansk factory ‘Stroimashina’,

— under arrest since 27 May 1971, brought to trial under Article 62, section 1, of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, has established that:

On 14 June 1970, during the elections, the accused A. N. Chekalin wrote anti-Soviet inscriptions on ballot papers used for the elections to the Soviet of the Union and to the Soviet of Nationalities in the Ukrainian SSR Lysychansk electoral district number 38, and the Lysychansk electoral district number 440; in these inscriptions he called for the overthrow of Soviet authority and also made deliberately false and libellous accusations defaming the Soviet social and political system, thus committing the crime specified in Article 62, section I, of the Ukrainian Criminal Code. The accused Chekalin has admitted that he is guilty of the above-mentioned offence, and that, on election day, he went to the polling booths and, on being given the ballot papers, he wrote on them comments of an anti-Soviet nature, libelling the Soviet electoral system; the fact that he was guilty of the above-mentioned offence is supported by the evidence of witness N. L Veretennikov, who was at the time deputy-chairman of the constituency electoral commission and who, while counting the votes, noticed that there were anti-Soviet inscriptions on two of the ballot papers. He said that he had interpreted these inscriptions as calling for the overthrow of Soviet authority and as libelling our electoral system. The witness E. R. Chekalina, wife of the accused, said that after the elections her husband had mentioned that he had written anti-Soviet comments; she also said that her husband listened to foreign radio broadcasts, particularly to the ‘Voice of America’. The witness V. D. Zhitny, foreman of the work-brigade in which the accused worked, told the court that Chekalin was discontented with the existing system in our country and had talked of possibly emigrating. The evidence of witness S. P. Chernikov was that he had heard Chekalin use insulting language about communists. The accused did not deny that he was discontented with the existing system in our country, that he had expressed the desire to emigrate to some other country, that he had regularly listened to foreign radio broadcasts, and that in his inscriptions on the ballot papers he had quoted some words he had heard from these radio broadcasts. (The following half line is indecipherable — Chronicle) . , . the material evidence on which the inscriptions, as the criminological examination statement shows, were written by one and the same person Chekalin. The accused was aware that, in putting these inscriptions on the ballot papers, he was spreading anti-Soviet ideas, because the inscriptions on the ballot papers would be read when the votes were being counted, and it was his intention that they should be read. He acted with the deliberate intent of spreading libellous fabrications concerning our electoral system; he himself does not even deny this; therefore, it follows that he committed the above- mentioned crime with the deliberate intent of pursuing anti-Soviet aims, to which the above-mentioned evidence bears witness. The fact that Chekalin had anti-Soviet intentions when propagating his ideas is borne out by the very content of the inscriptions on the ballot papers. His contention that he committed this

crime because of a grudge against the administration of his workshop, due to a failure on their part to grant him a summer holiday, is ill-conceived. On 12 March 1970 a workshop union meeting forbade him the right to have a holiday in the summer because of his non-attendance at trade union meetings. He committed the crime on 14 June 1970 (see page 96 of the case file). Furthermore, he had not, at the time, taken any steps to appeal against the union meeting’s decision, nor did he refer to the above-mentioned factors during his original explanations of the reasons for his crime. Taking into consideration all the evidence, the Regional Court finds that the accused Chekalin’s guilt concerning anti-Soviet agitation has been fully established, and that his criminal acts have been correctly defined as coming under Article 62, section 1.

On coming to a decision as to the degree of the punishment, the Regional Court has taken into consideration the facts that Chekalin committed an especially dangerous crime against the State, that he was employed in socially- useful work, that he has a dependent child, and that he has admitted his guilt and repented. He must serve a term of imprisonment in a strict-regime corrective-labour colony, but taking into account his character and the way he has conducted himself, the Regional Court considers that a supplementary punishment in the form of exile is not advisable. In accordance with the law as laid down in Articles 323-324 of the Ukrainian Code of Criminal Procedure, the verdict of the Regional Court is as follows:

A. N. Chekalin has been found guilty of contravening Article 62, section 1, of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, and is sentenced to be punished by imprisonment for a term of five years, without exile, the term to be served in a strict-regime corrective-labour colony. The term of imprisonment is to include the time which Chekalin has spent in custody since 27 May 1971. The form of restraint is to remain unchanged: detention in custody,

Court expenses to the sum of 11 roubles, 88 kopecks are to be paid by Chekalin to the State. The material evidence — the ballot papers — is to be kept with the case files. An appeal against the verdict can be addressed to the Ukrainian S S R Supreme Court within seven days of its pronouncement, and by the

accused himself, within the same period of time after he has received a copy of the verdict.

Chairman (signature)

People’s Assessors (signatures)

Chekalin is at present in camp 35 of the Perm complex.

*

2.

The Trial of Dr Semyon Korolchuk (1971)

On 1 September 1971 the Lvov Regional Court (chairman: L. S. Zuber; people’s assessors; Rekunenko and Korniyenko), sitting in closed session, investigated the case against Semyon Isidorovich Korolchuk (b. 1930, with a higher medical education), charged with actions designated in Article 62 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code. [note 131] Counsel for the prosecution was Procurator P. I. Balochanin.

The defence was conducted by lawyers M, V. Melik and L. I. Fadorishev. The verdict reads in part:

The court has established that the accused Korolchuk, with the aim of undermining Soviet power, conducted anti-Soviet agitation from 1965 until March 1970, through the distribution of material of anti-Soviet content, in which the Soviet social system was defamed, and that he also spread the slights contained therein by word of mouth. In 1965, Korolchuk established criminal contact With V. Kobylyukh. from whom he obtained an article about the trial of Pogruzhalsky, and then gave it to 1. N. Gubka to read … In 1965, in the apartment of Guz. Roman Yuskov, a resident of Kiev, gave Korolchuk two issues of the anti-Soviet journal Suchasnist, published in Munich (F R G), which he also passed on to Gubka. In 1965 Korolchuk obtained a photocopy of the anti-Soviet publication Two Ukrainian Encyclopaedias — a book printed abroad. In the summer of the same year, 1965, Gubka gave Korolchuk five copies of the anti-Soviet journal Liberty and the Fatherland, which the latter showed to Pastukh at the end of 1965, subsequently hiding them in the village of Glinsk. In 1967 he tried to influence Pastukh, talking to him about Pogruzhalsky and praising the document ‘Woe from Wit’ by V. Chornovil. [note 132] While talking to A.Ya. Saly in the town of Turka, in 1965, he spoke of the deliberate burning down of a library in Kiev. In 1970, during a conversation with Yavorsky, he tried to convince the latter that a policy of Russification was allegedly being put into effect in the Ukraine.’

The court sentenced Korolchuk to four years of strict-regime camps ’and to confiscation of his “Spidola” radio set, as being an instrument of his crime’.

The nature of the crime committed with the aid of the ’Spidola’ radio set was not specified in the verdict.

*

3.

The Union of Ukrainian Youth of Galicia (1973)

On 9 August 1973 the Ivano-Frankovsk Regional Court (chairman, G. D. Vasilenko; people’s assessors, D. T. Konyukh, V. R. Kostromin), sitting in closed session, investigated the case against five Ukrainians charged with founding an illegal anti-Soviet organization, the ’Union of Ukrainian Youth of Galicia’.

The counsel for the prosecution was procurator I. D. Yegorov. The counsel for the defence were lawyers V. A. Tokarev, G. M. Kobylsky, L. M. Suslov, V. I. Pospolitak and A. S. Antonets.

The accused were:

Dmitry Dmitrievich Grinkov (b. 1948), secondary education, metal-worker, two small dependent children, home address; flat 28, 11 Pervomaiskaya Street, Kolomiya, Ivano-Frankovsk Region;

Nikolai Nikolayevich Motryuk (b. 1949), secondary education, metal-worker, has a dependant infant, lived in the village of Markivka, Kolomiya district, Ivano-Frankovsk Region;

Ivan Vasilyevich Shovkovoi (b. 1950), secondary education, joiner, lived in the settlement of Pechenizhin in Kolomiya district;

Dmitry Ilich Demidov (b. 1948), higher education, mechanical engineer, has a dependant infant, lived in the settlement.

Roman Vasilyevich Chuprei (b. 1948), prior to his arrest a third-year student at the Lvov Polytechnic Institute.

*

All five accused were charged under Article 62 (UkSSR Criminal Code = Article 70, RSFSR Code) and Article 64 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code (‘organized activity aimed at committing especially dangerous crimes against the State, and also participation in an anti-Soviet organization’).

Grinkov, Motryuk, Shovkovoi and Demidov were, in addition, charged under Article 223 of the UkSSR Code (‘stealing firearms, ammunition and/or explosives’), while Demidov was charged under Article 223 via Article 19 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code (‘complicity’). Grinkov, Motryuk and Shovkovoi were also charged under Article 140 of the Code (‘larceny’).

Grinkov was also charged under Article 81 of the Code (‘feloniously appropriating State or public property’), and Shovkovoi was further charged under Article 222 of the Code (‘unlawfully possessing, storing, manufacturing or selling weapons and/or explosives’).

*

Under Articles 62 and 64 the accused were charged with having, in the autumn of 1971, agreed ‘to found an illegal anti-Soviet organization to fight against Soviet power for the secession of the Ukrainian SSR from the USSR and for the establishment of a so-called “independent Ukraine”, by attracting new members into the above organization, by the ideological preparation and training of its members and of others in a spirit of anti-Soviet nationalism, and by establishing links with other organizations hostile to the Soviet Union, including ones abroad’.

Grinkov was the moving force behind the founding of the organization. And he then headed the organization, directed it, and named it ‘The Union of Ukrainian Youth of Galicia’. Nine meetings of the organization took place between February 1972 and March 1973. (Grinkov, Shovkovoi and Motryuk were arrested on 15 March 1973; Chuprei on 17 March 1973; and Demidov on 13 April 1973.) At those meetings, speeches were made and books read which were ‘of a nationalist, anti-Soviet nature’, and ‘nationalist songs’ were sung.

Under the other Articles of the Ukrainian Code, the main charge against the accused was the stealing of firearms and ammunition. In addition, Grinkov had appropriated two builder’s pistols and had given them to Shovkovoi to convert into real firearms. The verdict stated that at the beginning of 1973, ‘in order to hide his criminal activity’, Shovkovoi had ‘thrown the pistols down a school toilet drain’. In 1969 Shovkovoi had manufactured a barrel-loading pistol, and in 1972 he had converted it and used it for target practice. At the trial all the accused ‘made full confessions and gave details about the time, place and circumstances’ of their criminal acts. Besides which, specific points in the statements made by the accused were supported by evidence given by seven other members of the organization, who appeared as witnesses at the trial, and by the ‘nationalistic content of notes confiscated from Grinkov’.

*

In passing sentence, the court took into consideration ‘the sincere repentance shown by the accused Motryuk, Shovkovoi, Demidov and Chuprei, and theircondemnation of their criminal acts’. The sentences were: Grinkov — seven years in strict-regime camps and three years in exile; Shovkovoi and Demidov — five years in strict-regime camps each; Motryuk and Chuprei — four years’ strict-regime each. The sentence carries the endorsement: ‘secret’.

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