Three Soviet Jews seeking treatment for cancer in the West have received or will receive exit visas for the purpose, it was reported at a meeting of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews at the Westin Hotel here Monday.
The information came from Jewish sources in the USSR and has not been confirmed by the U.S. Administration or in any other quarters. Also unconfirmed is speculation that the visas may be part of a deal between the U.S. and Soviet Union which resulted in the release of Nicholas Daniloff, the Moscow correspondent of U.S. News and World Report who was arrested earlier this month on charges of spying for the U.S. Daniloff flew to Frankfurt, West Germany, Monday.
The persons seeking visas are two couples, Benjamin and Tanye Bogomolny and Naum and Inna Meiman, and Benjamin Charney. Charney, Tanye Bogomolny and Inna Meiman have been diagnosed to have cancer. Benjamin Bogomolny and Naum Meiman would accompany their spouses.
Sources at the Soviet Jewry meeting here said there was no clear relationship between the promised visas and the Daniloff case. The visas may have been granted in response to appeals by Western physicians on behalf of the cancer victims, according to Glenn Richter, national coordinator of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ), who is attending the meeting.
It was learned, meanwhile, that another Soviet Jew, Semyon Borozinsky of Leningrad, has been sentenced to five months’ forced labor for refusing to testify at the trial earlier this year of Jewish activist Vladimir Lifshitz who was sentenced to three years at a labor camp.
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