A verdict is expected tomorrow in the Leningrad trial of nine Jews. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed by telephone from Leningrad today that the prosecutor, Mrs. Inessa Katukova, asked for prison terms ranging from 1-10 years for the defendants. The sources told the JTA that a total of 48 defense witnesses including non-Jews testified in court on Friday and yesterday. Other sources placed the number of prosecution witnesses at 46. The JTA sources insisted that none of the defendants had made “complete confessions” as reported by Tass. They conceded that some of the accused pleaded guilty to offenses of a “purely technical” character but all denied that they had committed any crime against the Soviet state. Mrs. Katukova demanded a 10 year prison term for Grigory Hillel Butman, and 8 years for Mikhail Korenblit, the two chief defendants. She asked 6 years for Lassal Kaminsky; 5 years for Lay Yagman; 4 years for Vladimir Mogilever; 3 years each for Solomon Dreisner, Lev Korenblit, who is Mikhail’s brother and Viktor Boguslavsky; and one year for Viktor Shtilbans. In the first Leningrad trial, the two chief defendants had their death sentence commuted to 15 years at hard labor. The prosecution witnesses reportedly included at least four of those convicted in the first Leningrad trial.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
