The World - News from May 25, 1989

The ailing mother-in-law of former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky was secretly flown from Moscow to Jerusalem in a humanitarian mission approved by the Soviet government, a U.S. physician said. Svetlana Stiglitz, 62, left Moscow on a stretcher Sunday night and arrived at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem on Monday, Dr. Michael Baden said. Baden said she was met in London by her son-in-law. Baden said Stiglitz “had broken her hip, which was untreated, and had numerous bedsores. She was very depressed and dehydrated.” Baden said he was approached by a Jewish leader in New York and asked to fly to Moscow and bring out a sick patient. Reached in Jerusalem by the Reuters news agency, Natan Sharansky said he would neither confirm nor deny Baden’s account.