In November 1977, Stepan Zatikyan, a founding member of a splinter group of the National United Party, an underground Armenian nationalist organization, was arrested. His accomplices, Zaven Bagdasaryan and Hakop Stepanyan, were also taken into custody after an unsuccessful attempt to detonate a bomb at the Kursky Rail Terminal in Moscow. A secret trial followed. Zatikyan, Stepanyan, and Bagdasaryan were all found guilty on 24 January 1978 and executed five days later. The Supreme Court issued a brief statement, dated 31 January 1979, after the trial and execution, naming Zatikyan alone as the perpetrator. According to KGB general Philip Bobkov, any publications in Armenia about the bombings were blocked by Karen Demirchyan, the head of Soviet Armenia. The 8 January 1977 bombings occurred during systematic reprisals by the Soviet authorities against the Helsinki Groups in Moscow, Ukraine and Lithuania, set up to monitor the USSR's observance of the Helsinki Accords. On 10 January 1977, Soviet journalist Victor Louis (Vitaly Yevgenyevich Lui), a well known KGB agent provocateur, published an article in a British newspaper, hinting at the involvement of Soviet dissidents in the bombings. Several dissidents, including Albrekht, the secretary of the Soviet branch of Amnesty International, were threatened and interrogated by the KGB. (Soviet dissident Alexander Tarasov claimed to have been interrogated by a KGB investigator who tried to "convince" him that he was involved in the bombing. Without his strong alibi - he was confined at a hospital at the time of the bombings - "it would be me who was executed instead of Zatikyan", he said.) In response Andrei Sakharov wrote an "Appeal to world community", in which he requested an impartial investigation and suggested that the bombings might have been arranged by the KGB itself to discredit the entire Soviet dissident movement.  … I cannot rid myself of the hunch that the explosion in the Moscow underground and the tragic deaths of individuals are a new provocation on the part of the organs of repression, and the most dangerous of recent years. Precisely this hunch, and the fears connected with it that this provocation could lead to changes in the whole internal climate of the country, have prompted me to write this article. I would be very glad if my thoughts turned out to be wrong … In an exchange with the deputy Procurator General, he added, "I have serious grounds for concern.