Leningrad Nine Have Not Pleaded Guilty, Have Not Incriminated Each Other

Jewish sources in Moscow denied emphatically today that any of the nine Jewish defendants in the new Leningrad trial had pleaded guilty or tried to incriminate each other, as the Soviet news agency, Tass, has claimed. On the contrary, the sources said, the defendants’ spirits remained unbroken despite prolonged interrogation by the KGB (secret police) before the trial and despite what the sources called the aggressive behavior of the woman judge. Other Jewish sources reported last week that Solomon (Shlomo) Dreizner and Vladimir Osherovich Mogilever had in fact confessed complicity in last June’s alleged skyjacking plot. Tass has claimed that at least three defendants have confessed–Grigory Ilya (Hillel) Butman, Lev Korenblit and Mogilever, the latter charged with being “for all intents and purposes an agent of Shin Bet,” the Israeli Secret Service. The Jewish sources in Moscow said today that the Leningrad trial was following the pattern of similar political trials in the USSR. They said the defendants and their attorneys were frequently cut short by the judge, especially when they referred to their right to leave the Soviet Union. The Soviet press has carried little on the trial since the initial Tass reports. Tass continues to call the proceedings an “open trial” although foreign newsmen are barred.