The five year prison sentence imposed by the Pskov court on the seventeen-year old Communist worker for the murder of his Jewish fellow worker, Bolsheminikov, is considered mild in circles interested in combatting the wave of anti-Semitic agitation in the country.
It was expected that the court would pronounce death sentence with commutation to ten years’ imprisonment in view of defendant’s youth.
It appears from the record of the trial that the public accuser, indeed, demanded death sentence, while the official procuror asked for the ten year term. The counsel for defense admitted that the defendant was an anti-Semite, but claimed that in the moment of the murder he was actuated not by his anti-Semitic bias but by his personal feelings. In his last word to the court Trofimov confessed to having committed the murder, but asserted that it was not the result of his anti-Semitic feelings. At any rate, it was not premeditated, else he would have killed Bolsheminikov secretly and not in the presence of witnesses.
Sinenikolsky pleaded guilty to having spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but claimed he had no connection with the murder. Trofimov received the verdict with a smile.
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