West German Won’t Be Tried for Spying : Youth Faces 3 Charges Over Soviet Flight

MOSCOW — West German pilot Mathias Rust will go on trial next month for flying his plane across Soviet borders to Red Square but will not be charged with spying, Soviet officials said Tuesday.

The 19-year-old Rust was formally charged with entering the country illegally, violating flight rules and “malicious hooliganism,” a West German Embassy officer was told by a Soviet investigator.

If he is convicted on all counts and is sentenced to serve prison terms consecutively, he faces a maximum term of 18 years. The usual Soviet practice, however, is to order that sentences run concurrently. The most serious charge--violation of aviation regulations--carries a maximum 10-year term.

Western diplomats said the filing of three charges makes it less likely that the young man from Hamburg will receive a very light sentence.

Rust’s flight in May from Helsinki to Moscow, over some of the most powerful air defenses in the world, embarrassed the Kremlin.

Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov; the air defense commander, Alexander I. Koldunov, and a number of other military officers were fired as a result, and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev strongly criticized the military high command for negligence.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the trial will take place within a month, probably in Moscow, after Tuesday’s transfer of the case to a state prosecutor. The only issue will be the degree of Rust’s guilt and whether there are any mitigating circumstances, according to the spokesman, Gennady I. Gerasimov.

“No one says he is not guilty,” Gerasimov said at a news briefing. “The defense will probably concentrate on finding mitigating circumstances.”

Rust, who has been held in the KGB’s Lefortovo Prison since he landed his single-engine Cessna on the edge of Red Square last May 28, was visited Tuesday by West German consular officer Gerhard Schroembgens.

Details of the charges were given to the diplomat by a Soviet investigator and relayed to correspondents by a West German Embassy press officer.

Rust has been provided with a Soviet defense lawyer, indicating that the investigation has been concluded and that preparations for the trial have begun.

Before the charges were announced, there were several reports in Soviet newspapers implying that Rust conspired with others to make the flight for sinister purposes, including intelligence-gathering. Rust’s parents, however, said in interviews with Soviet newspapers that he did it only to try to see Gorbachev on a mission of peace.