Sakharovs detained, ‘beaten’ at Omsk

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34130, 17 April 1976, Page 15

Sakharovs detained, ‘beaten’ at Omsk

I -X Z Press .issocioriorn .MOSCOW, April 16. j Police in Omsk, Siberia, on Wednesday detained Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov and his wife. 1 "Selena. for attacking officials at the lual of a ■ tartar dissident. the [official Tass News Agency said. United Press International reported. They were expected to return to Moscow today after being detained for a second time yesterday. In a telephone call to] (friends on Thursday, Mrs) Sakharov said police had (beaten her and her husband !after preventing them from ■ attending the trial of Crimean Tartar, Mustaia I Di .iiliev. Tl'.e physicist and his wife had flown to the trial. 2200 ji.m from Moscow, the day 'before. but were detained at the e-.nn thouse. I Tass sa.o the Sakharovs I had both struck policemen ( in a brawl after forcing their I way into the courtroom. ] They said sources in Omsk reported by telephone that Dr Sakharov did not attend the trial of Mustafa Djemiliev. charged with anti-Soviet' slander. He and his wife had. travelled to Omsk for the! proceedings against Djemi-i liev, aged 31. who has been] long known for his efforts to! [have the Crimean Tartars re-] stored to the homeland from which they were deported by Stalin. A Tass correspondent in the Omsk courtroom said the Sakharovs “suddenly broke into the hall and began noisily to demand seats.” The report said the policeman asked the pair to be quiet. “Dr Sakharov slapped the militiaman in the face and then struck a militia major. Weary rabbit? Hugh Hefner is stepping down as top rabbit at Playboy Enterprises, the multimillion dollar company built around the magazine he founded in 1953, according to a Chicago “Sun-Times” columnist. Mr I. Kupcinet. The columnist said Mr Hefner would retain his titles of Playboy board chairman and i chief executive officer. —, Chicago.

Dr Sakharov’s wife joined m the fight and struck the com-| I mandant of the courtroom," .’Tass said. ! The agency said the couple was detained and taken to a , police station where they ad- : milted in written statements ■to hitting officers. ; Tass said Mrs Sakharov ■ said she did it deliberately] [while Dr Sakharov "tried to! ] assert he had done so be-1 ■ cause militiamen allegedly ! tried to twist his arms." ( After a document was drawn up. the militia had released the two. Mrs Sakharov told friends j by telephone: "Yesterday we [Were at the police station for four hours. Todav it was for .less but they beat us." '! Dr Sakharov said he was ! going to Djemiliev’s trial because no Western journal-■ ists would be able to travel [ to Omsk which is a closed ■ city. Djmeliev was sentenced] to two and a half years in a I

i.labour camp for slandering I the Soviet State, according Ito dissident sources here. A 3la ear-old campaigner ■ for the right of the Crimean Tartars to return to their I homeland. Djemiliev has ‘•spent most of his adult life lin prison and labour camps ,He was rearrested just before finishing his last labour 'camp term and charged with ! making slanderous statei meats. Djemiliev was sentenced yesterday to two and a half years in a labour camp for slandering the Soviet State. In another trial, in Mos- ' cow. Dr Sakharov's close friend. Andrei Tverdokhlebov. was sentenced to five years internal exile on the • same charge. I Dr Tverdokhlebov. a 36I year-old physicist, and secre- , tary of the unofficial Moscow section of Amnesty Interi national, was arrested last I Anril