The decisive development marking the start of action by the investigators in the “case of the inscriptions” (CCE 42) was the evidence given by G. Trifonov (CCE 42), who was arrested on 9 August 1976 in a case ‘of his own’.
On 3 September he wrote “testimony in his own hand”, which was based on his own imagination and on KGB surveillance information presented to him by the investigators.
On 13 September 1976 Oleg Volkov and Yuly Rybakov (CCE 42) were arrested. Wanting to demonstrate the falseness of Trifonov’s testimony, they began to give detailed evidence, at first about the inscriptions, then about crimes completely unknown to the investigators: theft of a typewriter, a military radio set, etc.
In the inscriptions case no fewer than 60 people were interrogated. Notably, on 28 September, the day before his emigration, I. Sinyavin was interrogated (CCE 43, ‘The Trial of Voznesenskaya”).
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On 14 March 1977 the hearing in the case of Rybakov and Volkov began in the people’s court of the Vasileostrovsky district of Leningrad.
All who wished to attend were admitted to the trial, even foreign correspondents. The judge asked that no notes be made, but turned a blind eye to the fact that notes were made.
Yuly Rybakov and Oleg Volkov were charged under the following Articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code: 89, pt. 2 (“Theft”), 96, pt. 2 (“Petty theft”), 98, pt. 2 (“Deliberate destruction of, or damage to, State or public property”) and 206, pt. 2 (“Hooliganism”). Besides this, Rybakov was also charged under Article 189 (“Concealing a crime”).
During the trial neither the prosecution nor the defendants once mentioned the content of the slogans and they studiously avoided the political overtones of the trial.
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The defendants agreed on all points with the prosecution, disputing only the sum of the damage (13,393 roubles), which had been calculated as the sum necessary to repair the building and remove the slogans: this included 8,000 roubles for repair to the Tsar’s Bastion of the Peter-Paul Fortress, which is at present undergoing radical reconstruction.
Each of the accused tried to take on himself the maximum blame.
At the start of the trial Rybakov declared: “All that has been stated in the indictment is true. We had no intention of causing material damage. We thank the investigators for their objectivity. I promise to conduct myself in a worthy fashion during the court session.” In his final plea he made a protest against the broadcasting by Radio Liberty of slanders about the trial. Rybakov declared that his motive for committing crime had been personal malice.
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On 19 March 1977 the court passed sentence; Rybakov was given six years of hard-regime camp; Volkov, seven years of strict-regime camp (he had a previous conviction).
On 20 March the Leningrad Pravda newspaper carried an article, ‘The Smearers”.
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