Didn’t Have License to Practice in Army : Defector a Doctor Who Mopped Floors

BONN — A U.S. Army private who defected to Cuba was a qualified pathologist who mopped floors at a U.S. Army hospital in West Germany, sources at the hospital said today.

They said the Army was warned by the man’s mother that he was getting ready to defect.

“It’s an awful sad story,” a source who knew Pfc. Hugo Romeu said. “He is a fully qualified pathologist but he couldn’t practice because of some license technicality. He was kind of at a dead end.”

The Cuban Communist Party daily Granma reported that a U.S. Army captain called Hugo Romeu Almeida arrived in Havana on Monday seeking political asylum. Granma said Romeu claimed that the Army was planning to send him to Central America.

The Pentagon said records showed that Hugo Romeu was a medical laboratory technician with the 5th General Hospital in Bad Cannstadt, near Stuttgart, with the rank of private.

Romeu, 31, of Glenview, Ill., is Cuban-born. Army records show that he enlisted in Chicago on April 10, 1985. He was listed AWOL from the German hospital on July 3 and declared a deserter a month later.

Hospital sources said Romeu’s mother called the Army about two weeks ago from the United States to warn that he was about to defect over a special mission he faced.

Romeu earned a valid medical degree abroad and practiced at the Cook County, Ill., Medical Examiner’s office but had not taken a U.S. license exam to qualify as an Army doctor.