Son-in-Law of Brezhnev to Face Trial in Sept.

The son-in-law of the late Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev will stand trial in September on charges of giving and accepting bribes, it was reported today.

The government daily newspaper Izvestia said the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court determined today that there is sufficient evidence to put Yuri Churbanov on trial with eight other people. It said the trial will begin in early September but did not give an exact date.

The evidence against the nine defendants is contained in 110 volumes, the newspaper reported.

The official press agency Tass had said in January that a bribery and corruption investigation of Churbanov, who is in his 50s, had been completed.

Churbanov married Galina Brezhnev while her father was party leader and was appointed in 1980 as deputy interior minister, a post that is in the department overseeing uniformed police and issuance of travel and emigration visas.

Arrested Last Year

He was removed from the post three years ago for what was said at the time to be preparation for transfer to other, unspecified work. But he was arrested last year and accused of corruption and bribe-taking.

The Soviet press has carried detailed reports in recent months about the investigation at a time when Brezhnev, who served from 1964 until his death in 1982, has come under increasing criticism for leading the country during a “period of stagnation” when the economy sagged and cronyism and corruption prevailed.

Tass has reported that Churbanov is accused of accepting bribes totaling more than $1.1 million, equivalent to 270 years’ pay for the average Soviet factory worker.

The labor newspaper Trud reported June 18 that Churbanov is accused of providing well-paid protection to police in the Soviet Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan who had killed, raped, extorted and robbed at will.

The Communist Party newspaper Pravda reported last week that Galina Brezhnev and other relatives of the late Kremlin chief have been stripped of unmerited privileges and will receive only the retirement benefits they earned.