The defendant of aircraft business Mark Dymshits died

In Israel, on August 25, Mark (Mordechai) Dymshits died - one of the main defendants in the 1970 aircraft, opened after trying to hijack the aircraft by Soviet Jews -Keeps. It is reported by Izrus.

Dymshitz was born in 1927. During the blockade of Leningrad, he lost his parents; brought up in an orphanage. At the end of the military flight school, he served in Bukhara, but in 1960, not wanting to put up with anti -Semitism, who reigned in the army, he was demobilized. Dymshits failed to get a job in civil aviation. Then he graduated from the agricultural institute and worked in Leningrad as an engineer.

In December 1969, Dymshitz spoke with the idea of ​​capturing the plane and flying abroad on it, then to repatriate to Israel. The plan, supported by the human rights activist, a prominent figure in the Zionist movement, Eduard Kuznetsov, was called the "Wedding Operation". Initially, it was a question of hijacking the plane in Yerevan and planting it in Turkey. Then the plan was adjusted.

On June 15, 1970, a group led by Dymshits and Kuznetsov arrived at the Leningrad Smolny airfield. It was supposed to sit on the An-2 aircraft, heading to the city of Priozersk, Leningrad region, to capture it in the air and send it to Sweden. The captured plane was supposed to lead a smoke. To intimidate the crew, he previously got a gun, which, however, could only shoot once.

However, the KGB found out about the plans of the refuseniks, and before landing on the plane, participants in the conspiracy were captured. In total, 16 people were attracted in the case.

The verdict was issued in December 1970. Dymshitsa and Kuznetsov were sentenced to execution, another 10 conspirators - to the terms of 4 to 15 years, and four women, including the wife of Dymshits and his two daughters, were exempted from criminal liability "based on the considerations of humanity."

In the same month, under the pressure of foreign politicians and social activists, including US President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Israel Golda Meir, death sentences to Dymshitsa and Kuznetsov were replaced by 15 years in colony.

In April 1979, the USSR exchanged five Soviet dissidents in New York, including Dymshitsa and Kuznetsov, on its spies captured by American intelligence services. After the release, both defendants in the aircraft business settled in Israel. There they were honored as heroes.

In Israel, Dymshits worked in the specialty - in the aviation industry.

The Israeli politician, the former Soviet dissident and political prisoner Nathan (Anatoly), Scharansky noticed in connection with the death of a smoke that he could not raise the plane, but managed to "raise a large army from the Soviet Union." "Mark Dymshitz had a very great influence on me and inspired to join the struggle for the liberation of the Jews of the Soviet Union and their return to their homeland," Scharansky admitted.