Soviet Supreme Court Rejects Appeal by 9 Jews Convicted in Leningrad

The Supreme Court of the Russian Republic yesterday rejected an appeal for mitigation of the sentences of nine Jews convicted in the second Leningrad trial last May of complicity in an alleged aerial hijack plot. The prisoners were not present in the court to hear the verdict which was given to their lawyers. Apart from their wives, no other relatives or friends were admitted to the hearing. A group of Jews, some of whom had come from Leningrad, waited on the pavement outside the court for the results. Admitted to the courtroom by special pass were several “members of the public.” They reportedly shouted to the wives of the convicted men, “Don’t you like the sentences? You ought to be shot.” The nine Jews were sentenced on May 20 as follows: Gilya Butman, 10 years; Mikhail Korenblit, seven years; Lassal Kaminsky and Lev Yagman, each to five years; Vladimir Mogilever, four years; Solomon Dreizner, Lev Korenblit and Victor Boguslavsky, three years each; Viktor Shtilbans, one year. (Jewish sources in New York had reported erroneously Monday that the appeal hearing in Moscow was postponed until July 27.)