Brezhnev Son-in-Law Gets 12 Years for Taking Bribes : Churbanov Had Faced Execution

A military tribunal today found the son-in-law of the late President Leonid I. Brezhnev guilty of taking bribes and abusing his office, but he was spared the firing squad and sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp.

Yuri Churbanov, who once wielded almost unlimited power and influence as the second in command of the police during Brezhnev’s years in power, systematically took thousands of rubles of bribes instead of enforcing Soviet laws, said the judge, army Maj. Gen. Mikhail Marov.

The trial was conducted by a three-man military tribunal headed by Marov because Churbanov had the military rank of colonel general.

The sentencing came only one day after the Communist Party Central Committee issued a decree ordering that the name of Brezhnev himself be removed from towns, streets, clubs and factories because of his shortcomings as leader.

Churbanov originally faced the death penalty in the sensational trial that began Sept. 5 on charges that he had accepted bribes of more than $1.1 million.

He was also alleged to have accepted deliveries of wines, cognacs, grapes, pomegranates and other fruits that were flown to Moscow on Aeroflot.

But during the trial the court threw out some charges and reduced the amount of bribes he was accused of taking to $145,000. Prosecutors had recommended a 15-year sentence.

The 52-year-old Churbanov stood throughout the entire 3 1/2 hour procedure at the Soviet Supreme Court, staring calmly at the judge and two lay assessors.

He did not react to the announcement of the verdict and sentence, and declined to talk to reporters afterward.

But his lawyer, Andrei Makarov, said the court’s decision showed that the Soviet Union is on the way to a society based on law.

“You can agree or disagree with the sentence, but in substance the throwing out of most of the charges leveled by the prosecutors is indisputable,” he said.

Churbanov was a junior policeman until he divorced his first wife and married Brezhnev’s daughter Galina--who is believed to have had a penchant for diamonds, high living and alcohol--in 1971.

After the marriage Churbanov’s career took off and he was promoted rapidly through the ranks, becoming first deputy interior minister in 1980.

Galina did not attend today’s court session.

Things began to fall apart four years ago when Galina’s close friend Yuri Sokolov, the director of Moscow’s most elegant grocery store, Gastronome One, was executed for extorting millions of rubles from the Communist Party elite.

The Soviet press has described Galina as a woman of flamboyant tastes whose romantic relationship with an artist from the Moscow circus, Boris the Gypsy, led her into diamond-smuggling adventures abroad.

Churbanov was tried along with eight other former government officials from the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan. One of the eight was acquitted and the case of another, former Uzbekistan Interior Minister Khaibar Yakhyayev, was turned back to prosecutors for further investigation.