Espionage: Comrade, On to London

Anxious to unload their embarrassing guest, Israeli authorities last week packed Convicted Soviet Spy Robert Soblen onto an El Al plane for a U.S.-bound trip via Athens and London. But as the plane approached London, Soblen stabbed himself in the wrist and stomach with a steak knife, forcing British authorities to take him on as a hospital patient. The delay that Soblen won by his dramatic suicide attempt immediately created a legal tangle. Though the Home Office insisted that Soblen was not legally in Britain, two barristers—one a Labor M.P.—obtained a writ of habeas corpus delaying his departure at least until after a court hearing next week. Soblen himself applied for political asylum in Britain, and at week's end had recovered sufficiently to be moved to London's Brixton Prison.