News In Brief

Soviet official denies saying Sakharov free to leave USSR

A high Soviet official denied Wednesday that he told a Danish politician that dissident nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov is free to leave the Soviet Union. The denial, in a statement issued through the Soviet embassy in Copenhagen, came after Ivan Polyakov, deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , was quoted Tuesday as saying that Dr. Sakharov had been given permission to leave, but declined to do so. Dr. Polyakov said his remark must have been inaccurately translated or ''deliberately distorted by the press.