Romanian Sailor Enters INS Office, Asks Asylum

A Romanian sailor walked into the Jacksonville, Fla., office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service on Wednesday and asked for political asylum, a Justice Department official said.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said the sailor, Stefan Vernea, made his way to the INS office with the help of a private security guard who had befriended him.

Protective Custody

The sailor was questioned in the office by INS agents and an interpreter speaking the seaman’s native Romanian. When it was determined that he was seeking to defect, he was placed in protective custody, the Justice Department official said.

The official said he had no other details on the security guard’s role in the sailor’s defection.

In Washington, INS spokesman Duke Austin would not identify the foreign vessel’s country of origin or how the sailor got off the ship.

The latest incident comes as Ukrainian-American activists were trying to get to a Ukrainian sailor aboard a Soviet grain carrier now in the Mississippi River near New Orleans to see if he wants to defect.

That sailor, Miroslav Medvid, jumped ship twice last month, apparently to defect, but both times federal agents returned him to the Marshal Konev. U.S. officials questioned him later and decided that he did not want asylum.

A federal judge in New Orleans refused Wednesday to order Medvid removed from his ship despite testimony the sailor clearly wanted to defect when he jumped ship.

“This federal judge is not going to do anything to jeopardize the national interests of this country,” U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman said. “The judiciary has no business in those waters.”

Senate Subpoena

In Washington, meanwhile, aides said that Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole was putting together a plan to have the full Senate subpoena Medvid in a bid to forestall his return to the Soviet Union.

A Dole spokesman, Walt Riker, said staff members were hastily putting together a resolution to be acted on by the lawmakers as early as today that would require Medvid’s appearance before an ad hoc panel of six senators on Friday.