Mark Lutskier, a 24-year-old math student from Kiev, has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for draft evasion as a result of his attempts to obtain an exit visa, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported today. The SSSJ said it learned from a telephone call to Kiev that Lutskier was expelled from Veronesh University in the Ukraine when he applied for a character reference, the first step in the visa process.
He left Kiev for Kutaisi in Soviet Georgia to apply for a visa there inasmuch as visas are more readily granted to Georgian Jews, the SSSJ said. But Soviet authorities sent him a draft notice. His efforts to appeal the notice led to his recent trial and sentence, according to the SSSJ. They said the telephone connection with Kiev was cut off before additional information could be obtained.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
