Dr. Yaakov Kandinov of Tashkent has been sentenced to eight years of harsh labor for alleged “bribery,” the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) and Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ) reported they had just learned. The trial took place last month. Kandinov, a dentist, was arrested last November, eight days before his scheduled departure for Israel.
According to the two groups, Kandinov, following official Soviet regulations, had brought two antique vases to the local Ministry of Culture for permission to take them with him and to obtain their evaluation for exit taxes. Several days later, while waiting for a reply, he was seized by the authorities.
The following day, the KGB broke into his home without a search warrant and destroyed many of his possessions. His remaining property was confiscated after his trial and his wife, Polina, and their three children remain in the Soviet Union, destitute. Kandinov’s relatives in Israel assert that the “bribery” charge is false, the SSSJ and UCSJ reported.
Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Andrei Sakharov has been threatened with punishment “under the full stricture of Soviet law” in retaliation for leading a march in Moscow March 12 in which Jewish activists demonstrated against the Kremlin’s encouragement of the Palestine Liberation Organization which led to the terrorist carnage in Israel March II in which 32 civilians were slaughtered. According to the SSSJ and UCSJ, the warning was mode by Deputy Procurator V.V. Nesterov who told Sakharov that his actions “bordering on hooliganism have provoked citizens to seriously violate the public order.”
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