Czechoslovakian authorities have ordered a halt to the practice of some lawyers to solicit fees from Czech refugees against whom criminal proceedings have been brought for “illegal sojourn abroad.” Guztav Husak, leader of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party said that neither he nor Premier Lubomir Strougal had been aware of the practice. A spokesman for the Council of Jews from Czechoslovakia disclosed here yesterday that a number of Czech Jews who fled to Israel following the Warsaw Pact invasion of their country in 1968 had received notices of criminal proceedings along with a demand for fees for “defense counsel” to be paid in foreign currency.
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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.