With the same unchecked power given to the NKVD's Lavrenti Beria.
“With the same unchecked power given to the NKVD’s Lavrenti Beria.”
Despicable.
Beria and all the other defendants were sentenced to death on 23 December 1953. When the death sentence was passed, Beria pleaded on his knees for mercy before collapsing to the floor and wailing and crying energetically, but to no avail. The other six defendants were executed by firing squad on the same day the trial ended. Beria was executed separately. He was shot through the forehead by General Pavel Batitsky who had to stuff a rag into Beria's mouth to silence his bawling (his final moments bore great similarity to those of his own predecessor, NKVD Chief Nikolai Yezhov, who begged for his life before his execution in 1940). His body was subsequently cremated and the remains buried in a forest near Moscow.