A Moscow 67-year-old Jew, Arkady Grinberg, charged with committing “economic crimes,” was sentenced to death yesterday in a Moscow Court, it was reported here today from the Soviet capital.
Several women in the audience broke into tears when the judge pronounced the death sentence. The alleged accomplices received prison terms ranging from one to 15 years and eight defendants were acquitted. The judge, in his summing up and sentencing, specifically identified 12 of the defendants as Russians and Ukrainians and eight as Jews.
According to the judgment, the group operated from 1956 to 1962 when most of the defendants were arrested. David Kazanovitch, 46, who received a 15-year term as an accomplice, was arrested this year. The court said that the group operated in Byelorussia and Georgia and used illegally obtained orders to get yarn from a cotton factory which was then re-sold to a knitting factory in Lvov at an allegedly fabulous profit. The court said that Grinberg alone made a profit equivalent to $152,000.
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