Man Identified as Defector Yurchenko Seen on German TV
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FRANKFURT, West Germany — A West German television network Friday showed a brief interview from Moscow with a man it described as Vitaly S. Yurchenko, a Soviet official who returned home last fall after reportedly defecting to the West.
Some West German newspapers reported last week that Yurchenko had been shot in a Soviet prison following his return to the Soviet Union. But the flim clip indicated he was alive and well.
It showed the man identified as Yurchenko walking on a Moscow street and talking with a German reporter who said he met the man by chance.
The U.S. government has maintained that Yurchenko was a high-ranking KGB officer who defected in Rome last August and returned home in November after saying he escaped from CIA custody. He claimed to have been abducted by the CIA and drugged while in American custody.
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