Refugee lived in U.S. without a visa for 20 years
A Santa Monica man who 32 years ago helped hijack a Soviet commercial jetliner to escape cold war-era Lithuania, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of allegedly beating his elderly father to death last week.
Albert Victor White, 46, was acting in self defense Feb 5, when during a struggle at the pair’s Santa Monica apartment he allegedly killed his father, Pranas “Frank” Brazinskas, 77, defense attorneys said.
“Hopefully, when the prosecutors hear his case fully, they will recommend he should be released,” said Nadis Alex, speaking on behalf of her husband, Jack Alex, White’s defense attorney. “Our view is that he is guilty of nothing but defending himself.”
White was arrested Feb. 5 at the pair’s two-bedroom apartment on 21st Street, between California and Washington Avenues. He is being held in the Santa Monica Jail on $1 million bail. His preliminary trial date is March 15.
Friends of the family said White had been threatening to separate from his father for some time, but the argument became violent last Tuesday.
Brazinskas pulled a gun and shot at his son, they said. White grabbed the nearest heavy object and struck his father across the head with it, according to friends. The Santa Monica Police Department has not reported that a shooting occurred. “(Brazinskas) was a very mean man who treated his son very poorly,” said a family friend who wished to remain anonymous. “The father was always so demanding. He wouldn’t let his son leave and live his own life.”
But to neighbors, the father and son were loners.
“The father, he wasn’t very outspoken or involved in the community too much,” said Leon Juoza, who lived across from the pair for six years. “Both of them, they mostly kept to themselves.”
The longtime neighbor described White as “very responsible” and “dependable.” He said White spent a lot of time taking care of his aging father.
“They were the only family they had here,” Juoza said. “The wife was back in Lithuania and the son, he took care of the father when he became sick.”
Brazinskas and his then 13-year-old son, hijacked an Aeroflot jetliner from the Soviet Union in 1970 and re-directed the flight to Turkey, prosecutors said.
During the flight, Soviet guards on board opened fire. Caught in the crossfire, a female flight attendant was killed and the pilot and co-pilot were wounded. After the soldiers were subdued by Brazinskas, the flight crew was able to successfully fly the hijackers to Turkey.
There, the father and son were arrested, convicted of murder and sentenced to prison — the father to eight years, the son to two. But in 1974 they were released under a general amnesty and placed under house arrest.
However, the pair managed to escape and fled to the closest American embassy in Ankara and asked for political asylum. Brazinskas claimed that if he had stayed in the Soviet Union, he would have been put to death for participating in a Lithuanian resistance movement.
Their request was denied, and the father and son were released back into Turkish custody. Soviet officials angrily demanded that the pair be extradited, but the Turkish government denied the request, causing international tension.
The Turkish government released the pair two weeks later. The father and son then flew to Venezuela, then on to Canada. But when the plane made a stop in New York, they disappeared.
They were arrested a few weeks later by the Immigration and Nationalization Service, but under the newly enacted 1980 Refugee Act, the father and son were allowed to stay, even though entrance visas would never be issued.
After a few years in Queens, N.Y., father and son moved to Santa Monica and settled among the city’s large Lithuanian community. Ever since their dramatic escape from the home country, the pair had become heroes among Lithuanian expatriates living in America.
“It was a big deal in the Lithuanian community that they could escape and fight their way to freedom in the United States,” said Juoza, of his neighbors. “In the beginning they had spoken out to community groups and political groups. But after the years went on they pulled in to themselves. They no longer wanted to be political figures.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 12, 2002. Read the original PDF.