<< 31 December 1980 : Issue 60 >>
The Journal “Poiski” (Searches)
see notes 1 & 2 (CCE 58.7-1)
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The Trial of Sorokin
On 4 November 1980 Senior Investigator Burtsev of the Moscow City Procuracy issued a resolution to prosecute Victor Sorokin under Article 181, pt. 1 (RSFSR Criminal Code: “giving evidence known to be false”, sentence, up to one year in the camps).
Burtsev’s resolution referred to a decision of 30 September by the Criminal Cases Board of the Moscow City Court, which had examined the case of Sokirko and also instigated criminal proceedings against Sorokin under Article 181, pt. 1.
According to Burtsev this decision said:
During questioning in court on 29 August 1980 Sorokin testified that he had no copies of the journal Poiski at home, that Nos. 4 and 5 of the journal had not been confiscated from him, and that Poiski No. 5 was not duplicated in his flat.
“During the pre-trial investigation, on 26 January 1979, however, he gave evidence that Poiski No. 5 was typed in his flat and the copies of the journal then collated, and that during a search of his flat Poiski Nos. 4 and 5 had been confiscated.“
Sentence was passed in the Sokirko case on 30 September (CCE 58.7-2): on that day no such decision was announced or even mentioned in court.
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REFUSAL TO GIVE EVIDENCE
During Sokirko’s trial in September Procurator Prazdnikova demanded that a criminal case be brought against Sorokin for refusal to give evidence. At the trial of Abramkin in October, Procurator Ostretsova made the same demand: Judge Yevstigneyeva said this had already been set in motion by a decision of the court trying the Sokirko case.
At the trial of Yury Grimm (CCE 58.9), Procurator Prazdnikova said: “Insofar as criminal proceedings have already been instigated against Sorokin for refusal to give evidence, I ask for similar proceedings to be instigated against Yakovlev.”
In Burtsev’s resolution dated 4 November the charge is described somewhat differently:
“During the pre-trial investigation, on 26 January 1979, V.M. Sorokin confirmed that at a search of his flat on 25 January 1979 the samizdat journal “Poiski” No. 4 and typewritten material for No. 5 of the same journal – ‘Several Current Problems of the Democratic Movement in Our Country’ by P. Abovin-Egides, ‘Social Security or Programmed Insecurity’ by V. Kuvakin, ‘Charter 77’, ‘For Russia’s Sake’ by V. Sokirko, and ‘Epilogue’ by K. Burzhuademov – were confiscated.
“Sorokin denied all this in court.“
On 23 October Burtsev sent a written request to Mishanintsev, the Chief of Police in the town of Pushkino:
“Please inform us whether you have any material incriminating Sorokin. If such material is available, kindly forward it to the Moscow City Procuracy to be attached to the criminal case.”
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The interrogation which took place on 26 January 1979 (CCE 52.4-2) was in connection with Case No. 46012/18-7. The next interrogation on 15 May 1979 was linked to Case No. 50611/14-79, the case of the journal Poiski.
At the latter interrogation Sorokin wrote on the record that he repudiated the evidence he had given at both interrogations in view of the investigator’s violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the “repeated compression of information” which distorted its meaning (CCE 58.7-2). This record was not included in Sorokin’s case and no mention was made of Sorokin’s statement that he repudiated his previous evidence and the reasons why he did so. By contrast, it was stated in the judgment on Sokirko that “Sorokin rejected his previous evidence for no reason.”
Sorokin and his lawyer Familyant petitioned for the case to be quashed, pointing out that the first two charges (concerning the confiscation of Poiski No. 4 and material for No. 5 at the search of 25 January 1979) were disproved by material in the case file and the episode connected with Poiski No. 5 being printed in his flat could have nothing to do with Sokirko, as it took place in January 1979 and, as stated in the judgment on Sokirko, Sokirko ‘prepared and circulated the fifth number of the journal’ in February of that year. Burtsev rejected the petition.
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TRIAL
The case was heard on 16 December 1980 in the town of Pushkino (Moscow Region). The President of the Court was Turkin, the prosecutor was T.P. Prazdnikova and the defence counsel was Familyant.
Sorokin pleaded not guilty on the following grounds:
1. At the trial of Sokirko, he (Sorokin) had denied that Poiski No. 4 had been confiscated from him. This did not contradict the evidence he had given on 26 January 1979 that the journal had been confiscated from a bag which Maikova had brought to his flat during the search (CCE 58.7-2). This was also confirmed by the search record.
2. At the trial of Sokirko, Sorokin had said: “I do not remember if the material ‘Charter 77’ was found at my flat. I do not remember what was confiscated at the search”; i.e. he had neither denied nor confirmed at the interrogation on 26 January 1979 that material for Poiski No. 5 had been confiscated.
3. When he said at Sokirko’s trial that he had not given evidence that No. 5 was printed at his flat, he was referring to duplication. When he said at the interrogation: “No. 5 was printed at my flat,” he was referring to publication, i.e. compiling the issue, as was confirmed by the interrogation record of 26 January 1979: “My participation consisted of providing my flat and typewriters and creating conditions for both work on the publication of the journal and relaxation.”
Sorokin called the court’s attention to the fact that none of the incriminating evidence was connected with the Sokirko case and that he had not once been interrogated in connection with that case.
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Procurator Prazdnikova asked that Sorokin be sentenced to one year in camps, reasoning that the maximum sentence was necessary because Sorokin was socially dangerous — he had participated in the preparation of a libellous journal.
The defence asked for his acquittal, since no crime had been committed. In his final speech Sorokin remarked that he was in fact not being tried for giving false evidence, a charge which the lawyer had demonstrated to be unfounded, but for his participation in the journal.
The sentence was one year of ordinary-regime camps [1].
All the charges were included in the judgment, which stated that the crime was committed with the intention of easing Sokirko’s fate. Sorokin was taken from the courtroom under guard. He is being held in Butyrka Prison (Moscow).
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Other events
On 23 December the RSFSR Supreme Court examined an appeal against the sentence on Valery Abramkin (CCE 58.8-1); it left the sentence unchanged.
Abramkin’s wife Yekaterina Gaidamachuk and Sorokin’s wife Seitkhan Sorokina were not admitted to the appeal hearing “since they had been witnesses at the trial” (there is no such restriction in the Code of Criminal Procedure).
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At the end of December Burtsev summoned Gleb Pavlovsky (CCE 56, CCE 57 & CCE 58) in order to return some of the things which had been taken at a search; they returned a briefcase with the lining ripped open.
Burtsev informed Pavlovsky that “more people will be imprisoned”, but “things won’t go as far as Stalin-type repression”. He said that the cases against Raissa Lert and Vladimir Gershuni had been closed on the grounds of ‘age’ and ‘illness’, so that Pavlovsky was the only remaining person who still had to answer for his actions [2].
Burtsev also said that it was stupid for Yakovlev to ‘disappear’: a case has been instigated against him under Article 181 (RSFSR Criminal Code), see CCE 58, and he is not living at home. They wanted to reach a ‘friendly agreement’ with him [3].
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NOTES
- Sorokin’s sentence was changed in March 1981 to one year of corrective tasks, without imprisonment (CCE 61).
↩︎ - Arrested in April 1982, Gleb Pavlovsky was tried in August that year (CCE 65.1) and sentenced to five years exile.
↩︎ - Mikhail Yakovlev was arrested in May 1981 and sentenced in July to one year in the camps. He was released under an amnesty in December 1981 (CCE 63.2).
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