Soviet Scientist Waving U.S. Flag Asks Asylum

SEATTLE —  A Soviet scientist was questioned by federal authorities Friday, one day after he reportedly ditched his comrades in a shopping mall and walked into a restaurant waving a small American flag to seek asylum.

FBI agents met Dmitri Vinogredov, 30, at a bar where he was sent by a restaurant patron who took him home and out for dinner.

Vinogredov, a zoologist working aboard the research vessel Babaevsk, temporarily docked in Aberdeen, Wash., failed to return on the bus that took some of the ship’s 68 crew members to the Capital Mall in Olympia on Thursday, said the vessel’s captain, Slava Temin.

Instead, Vinogredov walked into the lounge of Charlie’s Restaurant and struck up a conversation with Mark Grimes, 28, of Lacey.

“He walked in and said, ‘Is this seat taken?’ ” Grimes said.

“He walked in like this,” Grimes said, waving a small American flag. “He said, ‘I love America.’ I said, ‘Where you from?’ He said, ‘I’m from Russia and I’m defecting.’ ”

Vinogredov, wearing a plaid shirt and trousers and a blue baseball cap with “CGAS Kodiak” printed on it, asked to be taken to the freeway so he could catch a ride to Tacoma, about 30 miles northeast of Olympia. He said he feared that KGB agents would find him in Olympia and force him back to the boat, Grimes said.

Grimes and a friend slipped Vinogredov out of the mall, where the crew members had been shopping, and took him to a restaurant in Lacey for drinks and dinner before going on to Grimes’ apartment, where they called the FBI.

Grimes sent Vinogredov to the Viking Tavern to hide until an agent arrived.

FBI agent John Eyer in Seattle would say only that his agency had turned the matter over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Pam Carrozza, INS deputy district director, said officials from her office were interviewing Vinogredov, who made application for asylum.

She said he would be kept in protective custody until a community group or other host could be found. She said she did not know his exact reasons for seeking asylum, but added: “Now that he’s made the plunge, he’s afraid to go back.”

Carrozza said Vinogredov’s application for asylum could be processed within the next few weeks.