Yuri Brind, a 42-year-old Jewish engraver from Kharkov, will be brought to trial shortly on charges of slandering the Soviet Union, Jewish sources in Russia reported today. Brind was confined to a mental asylum on March 24. On Jan. 13, he had applied for an exit visa to go to Israel. The sources said he was moved recently from the asylum to the Kholdnaia Gorka prison in Kharkov presumably to await trial.
Brind staged a hunger strike at the mental hospital from April 3-6. He has no history of mental illness. The charges against him, according to the sources, stem from a letter he wrote in 1967 to the Communist Party newspaper, Pravda, in which he condemned anti-Israel propaganda and demanded that the Soviet Union keep “hands off Israel.” He and his father were summoned by the KGB (secret police) at the time.
Brind was released after his father pleaded with the authorities that his son “did not know what he was doing.” Brind’s father died last week, it was learned. His mother was informed several days ago that her son had been found “sane” and was being transferred to the Kharkov prison, the sources reported.
It was also reported that Brind was one of four Kharkov Jews who signed a petition to President Nixon asking him to intervene on behalf of Jewish emigration rights when he visits Moscow next month. The other signatories were Solomon and Tamara Grinberg and Michael Kivil.
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