“THE ‘HIJACKERS’” – participants in an attempt to seize a passenger plane (June 15, 1970) in order to escape from the USSR. Twelve people, three of whom were former political prisoners, bought all the tickets for a local airline flight on the Leningrad–Priozersk–Sortavala route, intending during the flight to force the pilots to yield the controls to one of them, a professional pilot, and to set a course for Sweden. The group members—“refuseniks” who decided to break out of the country in this way—were arrested while boarding the plane. They were tried on charges of “treason against the Homeland,” “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda,” “organizing a group with the aim of committing an especially dangerous state crime,” and also for the attempted “theft of state property in especially large amounts” (referring to the airplane)—under Arts. 64, 70, 72, and 93-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Eduard Kuznetsov and Mark Dymshits (the prospective pilot) were sentenced to death, while the others received long terms of imprisonment. The case also involved Sylva and Israel Zalmanson, Iosif Mendelevich, the Russian Yuri Fedorov (15 years), the Ukrainian Oleksiy MURZHENKO (14 years), Anatoly Altman, Leib Khnokh, Boris Penson, and M. Bodnia. Officer Vulf Zalmanson was tried by a tribunal of the Leningrad Military District. The verdict of the Leningrad City Court of December 15–24, 1970, sparked a wave of protests abroad, and the Supreme Court of the RSFSR commuted the death sentences to 15 years of imprisonment in a special-regime camp. The sentences of some other convicts were also slightly reduced.
In 1971, the authorities conducted several so-called “hijacking-related” trials against activists of the Jewish Emigration Movement in Chisinau, Riga, and Leningrad.
The “Hijackers’” case drew the attention of the world community, graphically demonstrating the impossibility for USSR citizens to leave the country legally, in particular, the problem of Jewish “refuseniks.” As a result, the Kremlin, in order not to lose prestige, was forced to significantly relax the prohibitions on leaving the USSR, initially only for Jews. But this reservation did not change the main point: for the first time since the 1920s, a real opportunity appeared for a part of the Soviet citizenry to legally leave the Soviet Union. The “third wave” of emigration began.
The imprisoned “hijackers” took an active part in the camp resistance movement.
Based on materials from Moscow’s “Memorial” – Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group