Gavriel Shapiro will go on trial at the Caliynynsky Regional Court in Moscow on July 26 at 11 a.m. Moscow time with Judge Galkina presiding, his American wife, Judy Silver Shapiro of Cincinnati, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last night. She claimed her husband’s guilt was decided even before the trial began.
Mrs. Shapiro said she had learned of the trial date in a telephone conversation with her husband late yesterday afternoon and immediately sent a telegram to President Nixon at the Western White House at San Clemente, Calif, urging him to “intervene with Soviet Ambassador (Anatoly F.) Dobrynin to seek the immediate release of my husband.” She also telegraphed Vadim Kavalerov, the Soviet Union’s Chief Consul in Washington, stating that it was “essential” that she be in Moscow for the trial.
Mrs. Shapiro said that Gavriel had advised her that his Moscow attorney’s request that charges against him be dismissed was rejected by the Soviet official investigating the case. The official called the request “totally unacceptable because Shapiro’s guilt has been proven by the evidence that has been presented in the case.”
In her telegram to the President, Mrs. Shapiro said “I fear his (Gavriel’s) young life and our marriage will be ruined by this unfair trial based on false charges. As an American citizen I urge you to intervene with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin to seek the immediate release of my husband so that we may be reunited in this country. I plead for an immediate meeting with you.”
The telegram to Kavalerov said it is “essential that I be in Moscow to prepare for trial. Partly in view of (the) fact that impending civil date of (our) marriage will be introduced into the case. In view of above I must be immediately given a visa by Soviet authorities.”
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.
