The case of a Jewish refusenik suffering from cancer has been taken up at the highest level in Moscow by Lord Plumb of Britain, president of the Strasbourgbased Parliament of Europe.
Plumb is making the first official visit to the Soviet capital by a president of the parliament. His spokesman, Lionel Stanbrook, said here Friday that he discussed the predicament of Georgi Samoilovich with Andrei Gromyko, president of the USSR.
Plumb “asked Gromyko for details about the case of the Jewish refusenik, who is suffering from cancer for which there is treatment only in the United States,” Stanbrook said.
The Soviet OVIR office informed Samoilovich on Thursday that he would not be given a medical visa for cancer therapy being offered him at a hospital in New Jersey. News of the refusal was reported in Washington by Pamela Cohen, president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews.
Samoilovich, 63, was diagnosed by a visiting American doctor as having large-cell lymphoma.
It is essential that Samoilovich undergo surgery not available in Moscow within three weeks, Lord Plumb’s office said.
(JTA Washington correspondent Howard Rosenberg contributed to this report.)
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