News In Brief

July 18, 1984

Fraud discord issues forth from Soviet concert agency

A Moscow newspaper, Soviet Russia, reported Tuesday the discovery of a corruption scandal involving bribe-taking and embezzlement in the Soviet concert agency Roskontsert. It has led to the reorganization of 10 orchestras and to jail sentences for leaders of the Irkutsk Philharmonic, in Siberia.

The worst feature of the case was the attitude of those involved that the corruption was not only normal but acceptable, the newspaper said.

Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party newspaper, said Monday 667 cases of fraud were discovered in Azerbaijan Republic in the last half of 1983, but complained that ''for this deception of the state only 181 people were punished.''

Yuri Sokolov, a gourmet grocer who provided food for the Soviet elite, was executed for bribe-taking as part of the continuing campaign against corruption, the newspaper Evening Moscow said Friday.