Brezhnev’s Daughter Regains Valuables : Soviet corruption: Court determines property is hers, not that of her husband convicted of taking bribes.

Former Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev’s daughter Galina has won a court action for the return of a country house, a Mercedes-Benz car and other valuables, a Moscow newspaper reported today.

The valuables--including a cash deposit of 65,500 rubles ($104,000 at the official rate), antique furniture and stuffed animals--were confiscated when her husband, Yuri Churbanov, was convicted of corruption in 1988.

The Young Communist League daily Komsomolskaya Pravda said she persuaded a Moscow appeal court that all the property belonged to her and not Churbanov, whom she married in 1971 and who then quickly rose to become a first deputy interior minister.

Churbanov is serving a 12-year jail sentence for taking bribes during the regime of his father-in-law. Breshnev died in 1981 after ruling for 17 years and is now widely condemned for leading the country into economic and social decay.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, which left little doubt it disapproved of the decision, quoted the appeal court judge as saying there had been no official interference in the hearing or attempts to influence his verdict.

He told the newspaper’s reporter that Galina Brezhnev, widely known during the Brezhnev period for her extravagant lifestyle, said in court that most of the valuables were presents to her from her father or from her circus artist first husband.

The daily quoted her as declaring in evidence: “My Mercedes car was a present to my father from some foreign statesman. I have a driving license and I drove it. It wasn’t my father’s habit to give gifts to my husbands.”

Brezhnev himself was widely known for his love of fast foreign cars and made it clear he expected his hosts on overseas trips and senior foreign visitors to Moscow to present him new ones for his collection.