Soviet Union Four Years for a "Fun" Flight

By William R. Doerner

The defendant in the third-floor chamber of Moscow's Supreme Court building was the very model of youthful sobriety: hair neatly trimmed, blue suit and tie immaculate, testimony carefully punctuated by respectful expressions of "please" and "if I may." But several times in the course of his three- day trial last week, 19-year-old Mathias Rust came close to abandoning his otherwise expressionless demeanor. It happened whenever witnesses described his spectacular arrival in Moscow last May 28, when, after single-handedly piloting a Cessna 172 across 500 miles of heavily guarded Soviet territory, Rust buzzed the Kremlin and landed just off Red Square in the heart of the Soviet capital. On those occasions, Rust could not help allowing the beginning of a smile to flicker across his face.

But Rust's feat, which made headlines around the world and turned the West German teenager into a folk hero at home, had never been a laughing matter to the Soviets. At the conclusion of last week's trial, Judge Robert Tikhomirnov and two lay jurors found Rust guilty of illegal entry the Soviet Union, violation of international flight rules and "malicious hooliganism." He was sentenced to four years in an unspecified labor camp. After hearing the verdict, Rust conferred briefly with his mother and father, who had flown to Moscow from their home near Hamburg to attend the trial. Speaking to a Soviet TV interviewer about his sentence, Rust said, "I was prepared for it."

Rust and his court-appointed defense attorney Vsevolod Yakovlev, who communicated with his client in German, did not dispute the charges of illegal entry and flying violations. But Rust claimed that the purpose of his daring journey was a sincere, if misguided, quest to promote world peace. "I had hoped to have the possibility of meeting the Soviet leadership, especially Gorbachev, to tell him my thoughts," he told the court. "My chief aim was to make an impact on world opinion." In retrospect, he admitted, the trip was "the biggest mistake of my life," but, he insisted, "it was not hooliganism."

The prosecution sought to portray Rust as a joyriding delinquent who recklessly endangered pedestrians in Red Square with a show of aerial acrobatics. Prosecutor Vladimir Andreyev produced a deposition from a West German tour guide claiming that Rust had told him the trip had been "for fun" -- which Rust denies having said -- and testimony that some of his flying passes came within 15 ft. of the ground.

The Soviets permitted relatively free press coverage of the trial, though TV access to the proceedings was limited to the Soviets' state-owned television system. Western diplomats had predicted before the trial that Rust would receive a fairly stiff sentence as a deterrent to other would-be adventurers. Soviet observers also pointed out that Rust's exploit had triggered the dismissal or forced retirement of a string of military officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov, virtually guaranteeing that his case would be handled with gravity. Privately, however, West German officials held out hope that the daring youth might be released after serving only a small part of his prison term. Said one Western diplomat: "They will probably keep him until the world has pretty much forgotten, and then send him home quietly."

With reporting by James O. Jackson/Moscow