The Region - News from Dec. 27, 1985

The wife of a Nicaraguan army pilot who deserted to Honduras during a routine mission has appealed to the United States to grant her husband political asylum. “We had plans to abandon Nicaragua as soon as the opportunity presented itself” because of the repressive Sandinista regime, Bertha Blanco said in an interview published in the Los Angeles Spanish-language newspaper Noticias del Mundo. Blanco, who fled Managua in March to live with a sister in Los Angeles, said she has not heard from her husband, 2nd Lt. Salvador Blanco Lacayo, since he landed Monday at an airport outside the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. “When I learned in the newspaper that my husband had deserted to Honduras, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I don’t know where he is, nor how to find him.” Blanco, 23, said she will ask the Honduran Consulate here to help her get in touch with her husband.