WORLD : Early Release for 2 in Chernobyl
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MOSCOW — Two top officials at the Chernobyl nuclear power station who were ordered jailed for 10 years for the 1986 catastrophe are to be freed early, a spokesman for President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today.
Vitaly Ignatenko told a news conference that the plant’s chief engineer, Anatoly Dyatlov, is being released for health reasons. His deputy, Nikolai Fomin, will be freed on Gorbachev’s orders in response to appeals, he said.
The two men were sentenced in July, 1987, to terms in a labor camp, after being found guilty of gross violations of safety regulations in conducting an unauthorized experiment that led to the April, 1986, blast.
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