A week after the meeting between Sobchak and Chulbanov, the long-awaited "horse case" finally entered the trial stage.
Ligachev was very dissatisfied with the public trial of Chubanov out of consideration of the political purpose behind the case, but Yakovlev insisted on making the trial public to the media, believing that if the secret trial was conducted by a celebrity like Chulbanov, who had a wide range of attention, it would greatly undermine the public policy that the Soviet Union had been advocating, and would be a reversal of Soviet political reform.
In the end, the Politburo chose to side with Yakovlev and rejected Ligachev's claims.
So in this situation, the people of the whole country began to pay attention to the fate of the former horse master.
For a while, there was a shortage of votes on the sidelines of the trial, and many local media rushed to Moscow to wait for the latest news.
The trial has aroused the curiosity of the people of the whole country, who are curious about the private life with Chubanov and Galina, and are angry at the huge wealth that Chubanov has exposed.
The point of criminal law is to provide an opportunity for the prosecution and defense to sit down and bargain.
In a civil law country like the Soviet Union, the prosecution and defense had to legally refute each other in order to achieve victory.
This is very different from the law of the United Kingdom and the United States, where the final verdict is handed down by a jury selected from among ordinary citizens.
As a result, common law lawyers often use convincing the jury as their primary strategy in defending themselves.
Sobchak appeared confident in the trial, and after the prosecution read out the indictment, the two sides entered the trial argument stage, and Sobchak first pleaded not guilty on the basis of the prosecution's alleged abuse of power.
Although the prosecution prepared a lot of materials and the confession given by the head of the engineering unit of the border guards who participated in the construction of the villa, under Sobchak's defense, the evidence given by the prosecution was simply full of loopholes, and they could not prove that Chubanov was not instructed to build these villas at the behest of the former minister Xiaoluokov, who had committed suicide, which made the prosecutor's first killer feature suddenly useless.
That was the end of the morning trial, and after the judge adjourned the trial, Sobchak left the courthouse with his assistant.
After a short break at noon, Sobchak ruthlessly overturned the prosecution's accusations one by one in the afternoon trial.
The prosecution was powerless to be countered by Sobchak, and was even speechless when questioned.
The reporters present turned their cameras at the 50-year-old law professor and were surprised by Sobchak's absolute superiority in the courtroom, because of Sobchak's outstanding performance, the high-profile trial showed a one-sided situation early.
The judges and prosecutors present had actually received pressure from above for a long time, but Sobchak was too powerful, coupled with the prosecutor's overconfidence and carelessness of the enemy, so that the judge was unable to help but was powerless, and in the end, the judge even anxiously asked the prosecutor: "Comrade prosecutor, are you really not going to speak, can't you say something?"
The prosecutor who questioned him broke out in a cold sweat.
In the end, the judge couldn't stand it anymore, and after the prosecution asked for an adjournment for a later trial, the judge ended the painful trial happily.
Even the layman Chubanov saw the extraordinaryness of Sobchak, who was already disheartened, laughed and was carried out of the courtroom by the bailiffs.
After Sobchak walked out of the courtroom and returned to his residence, Seryosha's phone call was not long in coming.
Seryosha watched the report of the trial on TV, and he already knew about Sobchak's performance, and Seryosha felt that there was nothing to worry about in this trial.
But the sophisticated Sobchak still had reservations, and he warned that the prosecutors might try to deal with him in any way they could.
Seryosha thanked Sobchak for the reminder that the sudden rectification campaign seemed to be intended to emulate the policy of Chairman Andropov, but the main role in its implementation was changed from the KGB to the judicial system.
This is one of the few departments that Ligachev can fully control.
Ligachev seemed to want to settle the situation once and for all at the local and ministerial levels, so the rectification campaign was really not small, and a large number of people drawn from Moscow went to various regions of the Soviet Union to collect evidence.
Even some retired veteran comrades did not let go.
However, Seryosha felt that Ligachev would never last long, Brezhnev was the supreme leader of the Soviet Union for 18 years, and Brezhnev was always as tolerant as a father to most officials.
Officials like Sherepin are simply rare.
Moreover, most of these officials are not promoted and reused, and only those who are flexible and capable like Suslov and Andropov will be reused.
It is conceivable that if Ligachev really intends to pursue corruption, the entire bureaucracy of the country will have to collapse.
Seryosha asked Sobchak for his views on the case, and Sobchak said that according to the current situation, there is no need for Seryosha to do anything for the time being, and everything can be decided when the prosecution takes further action.
After putting down the phone, Seryosha's suspense was relaxed, and he had a lot of other things to deal with, such as inspecting the joint venture plant between Volkswagen and Gorky Automobile Plant, which was under construction, such as Philip Morris's Marlboro cigarettes to enter the Soviet market, such as McDonald's opening his first restaurant in Moscow, and Kraft Foods to set up a branch in Moscow.
After all, this is the first time that US imperialist enterprises have entered the Soviet market since the Stalin era, and many jobs have to be done from scratch without any conventions.
So Seryosha put Chubanov's case aside for the time being, and he left for Gorky to inspect the progress of the construction of the automobile plant.
Before leaving, Seryosha extended invitations to the three companies he had acquired to visit the Soviet Union, and asked Kremlin Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev if he was interested in receiving a US business delegation, to which the Kremlin immediately gave a positive response. t1706231537: