Powerless to Deport Criminal, INS Says : Immigration: Hungarian government would not take back the man who killed a popular L.A. detective.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, after blasting federal officials for failing to deport a career criminal who this week killed a respected detective, had a “very friendly” chat with a top immigration executive who said the agency was powerless to deport Hungarian national Bela I. Marko because his homeland would not take him back.

“We couldn’t put him adrift in a boat,” Ben Davidian, Western regional commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, explained Friday. “You got to have a place to send him to or you have to keep him. No one is going to take back a guy like Marko.”

Davidian said he explained his agency’s efforts to deport Marko late Thursday in a telephone conversation with Gates. The chief had criticized what he thought were ineffective immigration policies that allowed the Hungarian criminal to remain here.

Marko, 37, fatally wounded Detective Russell Kuster, 50, Tuesday night in the lounge of the Hilltop Hungarian Restaurant in Hollywood. Marko also was shot and killed in the bizarre confrontation with the popular Kuster.

“We have in this country a whole bunch of people who are committing crimes and nothing much is being done about it,” Gates later told reporters.

Davidian said he called the police chief after hearing his remarks to discuss the INS’ attempts to deport Marko and to extend the agency’s sympathies over Kuster’s death.

“I shared my frustration and grief with him, and I thought we came to an understanding of what he said,” said Davidian, who added that Gates invited him to Monday’s services for the slain detective. “We’re following the law as best we can.”

Davidian said Marko, who illegally entered the United States near San Diego in 1981, was a career criminal who was arrested for various offenses, including robbery, blackmail, rape and theft in Hungary. He was under investigation for another offense when he fled to the United States, Davidian said.

Since arriving here, he was a suspect in a murder case and was arrested on suspicion of selling cocaine in 1982, Police Department records show.

INS authorities learned of Marko while he was serving time on the drug-selling charge. He admitted that he was in the country illegally and the INS sought to have him deported. Records show he applied for political asylum but was turned down.

He was later arrested and sentenced in 1985 to six years in prison in Nevada on a sexual assault charge. A year later, the INS obtained a deportation order but the Hungarian government would not take him back, Davidian said.

Unable to find another country to accept him, the INS forced Marko, who was released from prison last year, into a custodial program for aliens in which they must report each month to an INS detention official.

Davidian said Marko kept up his contact with the INS until shortly before the shoot-out Tuesday night.