The World - News from Sept. 7, 1988

Leonid I. Brezhnev’s friend and law enforcement chief, Nikolai A. Shcholokov, accepted lavish gifts and huge bribes, then killed himself when his deeds were discovered, the Soviet government charged. The allegations about the former interior minister, who died in disgrace in 1984, came on the second day of the bribery-corruption trial of Yuri M. Churbanov, son-in-law of Brezhnev, the late Soviet leader. Churbanov served as Shcholokov’s top deputy. The charges included the first official confirmation of rumors that the 73-year-old Shcholokov committed suicide when he felt the law closing in. Churbanov and eight former Interior Ministry officials from the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan are on trial before a Soviet Supreme Court military tribunal in Moscow.