Soviet Weightlifter Seeks Asylum at the Turkish Embassy in Athens

World champion Soviet weightlifter Hafiz Suleymanov and his Soviet trainer sought asylum at the Turkish embassy in Athens Tuesday, a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Suleymanov, 22, won the featherweight world title Saturday at the World Weightlifting Championships in Athens.

The Turkish spokesman said the weightlifter and his trainer, Vitali Strobov, had gone to the embassy early Tuesday.

In Athens, Soviet team leader Nikolai Parkhamenko said: “Suleymanov has been missing from his hotel room since 10 a.m. We have been looking for him since, but we don’t know where he went.”

Government officials in Ankara said a chartered plane would be sent to Athens to take Suleymanov to Turkey.

Officials said Suleymanov came from Sumgait in Soviet Azerbaijan, where it said the population was largely of ethnic Turkish origin.

Parkhamenko said: “I would be most surprised if he defected because everybody is free to go anywhere he wants. But if his defection is true, I am sorry for him. He is very young . . . and had the best facilities in the Soviet Union available to him.”