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So important did Soviet authorities con-sider the case last week that Chief Public Prosecutor André Vishinsky conducted it himself. Though Semenchuk cried shrilly that he was a visitor from Mars, manifested other symptoms of madness. Prosecutor Vishinsky was clearly out to make Wrangel's Governor an example to other remote Red bosses prone to autocracy.
For five hours Supreme Court Justice Berman and his two assistants remained closeted with bundles of testimony. Finally they reached their verdict, carefully written out in Judge Berman's own hand: Crazy Governor Semenchuk and Sledge Driver Startzev were sentenced to "the highest measure of social defense," death before a firing squad.