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Nine Persons Sentenced to Death at Moscow Trial; Six Are Jews

February 27, 1964
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Six Soviet Jews and three non-Jews were sentenced to death at the conclusion of the big Moscow “economic crimes” trial involving an alleged “ring” of 24 “black marketeers,” dispatches from the USSR capital reported here today. A seventh Jewish defendant, named Shakerman, had been tried separately, sentenced to death, and has already been shot, the Moscow dispatches reported.

In addition to the nine death sentences, Moscow reported, four of the convicted men were given 15-year prison terms, while 10 others received lighter sentences.

The Moscow trial was the largest mass proceeding yet held in the USSR’s series of court cases for alleged “economic crimes,” which resulted in scores of death sentences, the vast majority of the capital punishments being meted out to Jews.

When the case against the 24 men was revealed in Moscow last October, Izvestia, the official organ of the USSR Government, identified two of the “ring leaders,” named Shakerman and Roifman, as Jews, Izvestia called for a “show trial,” demanding death sentences even before the trial got under way. However, the trial had been held behind closed doors. It was closed to Western news correspondents, although select reporters for the controlled Soviet press were admitted.

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