Brezhnev Son-in-Law to Stand Trial For Bribery, Izvestia Says

Yuri M. Churbanov, son-in-law of the late Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev, is to go on trial in early September, after the completion of a bribery investigation against him, the government newspaper Izvestia said Monday.

Churbanov, 52, a former first deputy minister of interior, was arrested in February, 1987, and charged with systematic bribe-taking. Press reports said he was accused of amassing more than $1.1 million in bribes.

“The board of judges has determined that the materials of the case carry sufficient basis for the examination of the affair in court,” Izvestia said. “The hearing has been set for the beginning of September this year.”

The newspaper said Churbanov will be tried with eight co-defendants. It named one of them as Khaidar Yakhyayev, a former interior minister of Uzbekistan, who was fired and expelled from the party in 1984.

The case will be heard by the Soviet Supreme Court, and some Soviet officials have suggested that Churbanov could face the death penalty.

Churbanov is married to Brezhnev’s daughter, Galina, who was stripped last week of a special pension and privileges along with other relatives and associates of Brezhnev, who died in 1982. Churbanov was dismissed from his ministry post in 1984.

An article in the weekly Nedelya last Friday also alleged that Galina had amassed a huge personal fortune by smuggling Soviet diamonds and selling them abroad.