Dr. Mikhail Stern, released last month from a Soviet prison camp where he had served two years and eight months of an eight-year sentence for alleged bribery, arrived here yesterday and announced that he plans to settle in the United States. The sentencing of the 58-year-old endocrinologist from Vinnitsa, Ukraine on obviously false charges, had aroused a world-wide wave of protest, especially from leading physicians and scientists in Europe and the U.S.
The protests were credited with obtaining his early release from the labor camp and permission for him to leave the Soviet Union on an emigrant visa for Israel. Stern was reunited here with his son, Victor, 30, who told reporters, “We will leave immediately for the United States,” adding, “What my father needs now is peace and to forget.”
Stern was arrested in 1974 for allegedly accepting bribes from patients for drugs after he refused to block applications by his sons Victor and August to emigrate to Israel. Soviet law requires the confirmation of parents for their adult children who want to emigrate. Both sons emigrated and went to Israel in 1975. They campaigned there and in the U.S, and Europe for their father’s release. Chancellor Bruno Kreisky of Austria was among the many prominent figures who intervened with Soviet authorities on Stern’s behalf.
Victor confirmed that his father’s health suffered during his prison ordeal. “My father is ailing but I am confident his health will improve now as he is safe in the West,” he said.
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