The international tribunal on the imprisonment of Dr. Michael Stern will go ahead here March 24 as planned despite the report from the Soviet Union that Stern has been released. This was announced today by Will Steeman, organizing secretary of the tribunal; Rabbi Abraham Soetendorp, honorary secretary of the Dutch Solidarity Committee for Soviet Jewry; and Stern’s son Victor. They said the organizers are not only concerned with Stern but with all other Soviet prisoners.
Stern, who was arrested in May, 1974 and sentenced in December, 1974 to eight years on charges of “bribery and swindling,” was released Monday on “humanitarian” grounds by a Ukrainian Supreme Court. The court noted the 58-year-old endocrinologist was in ill health, Victor Stern, who learned of his father’s release when he arrived last night from Israel, credited pressure from the West for the Ukrainian court’s decision. “Continuous pressure from the West remains the best protection for my father,” he said.
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