Maria Isaakovna SLEPAK (b. 1926) was arrested in her flat together with Vladimir Slepak on 1 June at about 5 pm. She was taken to the police station.
At 10 pm she had an attack of pancreatitis with heart pains. The police called an ambulance.
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On 2 June 1978, investigator N. A. Nasyko of the Frunze district internal affairs department charged Maria Slepak under Article 206, pt. 2 (RSFSR Criminal Code) and interrogated her.
Maria Slepak handed the investigator a request to change the measure of restraint in connection with her bad state of health: that day she had a second attack of pancreatitis and the police again called an ambulance. Two hours later, Nasyko informed Maria Slepak that the district procurator had rejected her request. That evening Maria Slepak was transferred from a detention cell to Butyrka Prison.
When it was already past midnight, however, she was taken back to the police station, where the things taken from her at her arrest were returned to her. She had to sign an undertaking not to leave Moscow and was taken home.
Maria Slepak (1926-2017)
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On 6 June 1978, Maria Slepak sent a telegram about the interrogation of 2 June to the procurator of Frunze District. It read:
“… I was unable to read the record of the interrogation: I did not have my reading glasses with me in the detention cell, and was seriously ill with an attack of pancreatitis (in connection with which police officers twice called an ambulance). I automatically signed the record read to me by the investigator, which I ask you to consider invalid.”
On 9 June 1978, Criminal Case No. 2598a (M. Slepak) was separated from Criminal Case No. 2598 (V. Slepak and M. Slepak). On the same day Maria Slepak sent a telegram to the chief of the Frunze district investigation department, in which she wrote: “I refuse to give evidence in a case illegally brought against me …”
On 12 June, Investigator Nasyko informed Maria Slepak that the investigation was over, and charged her as follows:
“Maria Isaakovna Slepak committed malicious hooliganism, that is, premeditated actions rudely disrupting public order and showing open disregard for the public, of a particularly impertinent nature, namely:
“On 1 June 1978 at about 4 pm she and Vladimir Semyonovich Slepak, motivated by hooliganism, hung out on the balcony of their flat, No. 77 at No. 15 Gorky Street, overlooking a street in the centre of Moscow — Gorky Street — several sheets with the inscription ‘Let us go to our son in Israel’ and, notwithstanding repeated requests by policemen and officials of the Housing Allocation Bureau to cease her activities,
“On 1 June 1978 at about 4 pm she and Vladimir Semyonovich Slepak, motivated by hooliganism, hung out on the balcony of their flat, No, 77 at No. 15 Gorky Street, overlooking a street in the centre of Moscow — Gorky Street — several sheets with the inscription ‘Let us go to our son in Israel’ and, notwithstanding repeated requests by policemen and officials of the Housing Allocation Bureau to cease her activities,
“she continued to demonstrate, holding in her hands a sheet with the inscription ‘Let us go to our son in Israel’, accompanying her actions of a prolonged and persistent nature with threatening gestures, shouts of anti-Soviet content and spitting, and by these actions attracted a large crowd on both sides of Gorky Street, as well as in the street itself,
“causing a temporary interruption of the normal functioning of public transport, serious disruption of order in the street and disturbance of citizens; i.e., she committed the crime stipulated in Article 206, part 2 (RSFSR Criminal Code).”
In the middle of June 1978, Maria Slepak she spent about two weeks in hospital.
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On 25 July, a copy of the indictment and a summons to appear in court on 26 July were delivered to Maria Slepak at home: according to Article 237 (RSFSR Code of Criminal Procedure) “the court hearing may not begin sooner than three days after the accused has been handed” a copy of the indictment.
On 26 July, the Frunze district people’s court heard Maria Slepak’s case. The chairman of the court was A.V. Kuzmin. The prosecutor was Procurator I.M. Demeshchuk. There was no defence counsel. Only close relatives of the accused were allowed into the courtroom.
At the beginning of the court session Maria Slepak drew the attention of the court to the fact that she had been handed a copy of the indictment only the day before. The court ignored this. Then Maria Slepak read out a statement she had prepared beforehand:
“In this court today, I am about to be tried for ‘premeditated acts of hooliganism’ allegedly committed by my husband and myself. There were in fact no premeditated acts, least of all of hooliganism.
“In 1970 my family — my husband Vladimir Slepak and two of our children — in accordance with the established legal procedure, handed in an application to go to our relatives in Israel.
“We received a refusal. Since then, we have applied to all the official Soviet departments for permission to emigrate to Israel, where my mother, my son and my sister live.
“Early in the morning of 1 June this year, some persons unknown to me, who had driven up to the entrance of our building at 12 pm the night before in a car with government number plates, fastened our door so that it was impossible for us to leave the building. Driven to despair, my husband Vladimir Slepak and I made a placard that read “Let us go to our son in Israel” and went out onto the balcony of our flat.
“I have no doubt that the fate of our family has been decided in advance, and that those of you in this courtroom have only to formalize this decision in a sentence, thus adding new torments to our family’s eight years of suffering.
“For the reasons just given I refuse to take part in this trial. I request that this statement be filed.”
Slepak took no further part in the trial.
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The sentence reads in part:
“In sentencing M. I. Slepak the court has taken into account the gravity of the acts she has committed as well as information about her person and all the concrete details of the case.
“M.I. Slepak has not been tried before; this is her first criminal offence; she does not deny her actions as a whole in her statement of 26 June 1978, given at the court session. With regard to this, the court finds it possible not to imprison M. I. Slepak, but to give her a suspended sentence.”
The “shouts of anti-Soviet content” and the ‘spitting’ invented by Investigator Nasyko (see above) are not mentioned in the sentence.
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The court gave Maria Slepak [1] a three-year suspended sentence with a probationary period of three years.
She decided not to appeal.
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