Soviets to Try West German Pilot Sept. 2

Mathias Rust, the 19-year-old West German pilot who flew a light plane unimpeded across 400 miles of the Soviet Union into Red Square, will go on trial Sept. 2 in an open Moscow court, the news agency Tass said Friday.

Rust, whose flight from Helsinki in a Cessna 172 embarrassed the Kremlin and precipitated the dismissal of Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov, has been held in the KGB’s Lefortovo Prison since he was led away after he climbed out of his plane May 28 and began signing autographs.

“The criminal offenses panel of the Soviet Union’s Supreme Court will begin examining the case of West German national Mathias Rust in Moscow on Sept. 2,” Tass said.

“Rust will be tried in open court session chaired by Robert G. Tikhomirov, a member of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.,” the announcement said.

Tass said the prosecutor will be Vladimir Andreyev. Rust will be defended by Vsevolod Yakovlev, a member of the Moscow City Bar for 23 years, the agency reported. “He speaks German and has on five occasions defended foreign nationals, including West Germans,” Tass said.

Rust faces a maximum of 10 years in prison according to the three articles in the Criminal Codes of Soviet Estonia and the Russian Federation under which he is charged.

Article 84, covering violations of the rules of international flying, carries penalties of one to 10 years of detention, or a fine of up to $1,620.

Article 83, dealing with illegal exit from or entry into the Soviet Union, carries a sentence of one to three years of detention, and Article 206, malicious hooliganism, carries a term of one to five years.

The flight came during a Warsaw Pact military meeting attended by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in East Berlin.

Gorbachev flew back from the session with Sokolov, fired the Soviet defense minister within days and replaced him with Gen. Dmitri T. Yazov, 64.

There had been some reports in Bonn that Rust, of Hamburg, might be released quickly, but Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov quickly explained that Rust’s flight was not so simple.

Gerasimov said that the plane was equipped with an additional fuel tank and that the amateur pilot had studied maps and consulted with experts before beginning the flight.