This could prove to be a very interesting story….I’ll keep you updated…
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Swedish authorities Saturday were investigating how a man calling himself a “stateless American” ended up floating on a raft of oil barrels and wood planks in the waters between Denmark and Norway.
The man — who carried no identification, spoke perfect English and said his name was George Williams — was found by a Norwegian oil tanker on Friday morning, floating in the Skagerak sea on a raft of four oil barrels held together by a frame of wooden planks.
He told police he had been thrown from a ship several days earlier and now wanted to go to New York, but offered little further information.
He asked to be taken in by Swedish authorities, and shielded his face from photographers when he was taken to a port in southern Sweden.
“If he was thrown off a ship, they must have thrown off the raft for him to sit on as well, so I don’t know,” Swedish marine police spokesman Bengt Albinsson said. “We are trying to figure out the circumstances, but we will have to see how much he wants to tell us.”
The man claimed to be a “stateless American” born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1959, police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg told newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
“He says he has lived for a long time in the USA, but does not want to say where,” Fuxborg said. “He has worked in Europe, but does not want to say where and with what. He is not seeking asylum in Sweden but wants to go to New York.”
The man was taken to a hospital in southern Sweden to be treated for dehydration and a frostbitten foot, but did not seem seriously injured, authorities said.
He will be held in police custody until Monday, when authorities will contact the U.S. Embassy to try to confirm his identity, Fuxborg said.
Swedish authorities believe the man who was found on a raft between Norway and Denmark last week was born in Cape Town and adopted by globe-trotting Russian parents.
UPDATE 4/27
In questioning, the man, who calls himself George Williams, claimed to have been adopted in Cape Town by a Russian couple, who took him to Israel and Austria where he spent his childhood.
He wouldn’t say where he lived as an adult or from which ship he had been thrown.
Williams is believed to speak English with an Afrikaans accent
Williams is believed to speak English with an Afrikaans accent. He also speaks Russian and some German. Language experts plan to examine his accent, the police said.
A Norwegian oil tanker found the man on a raft made of wooden planks and oil barrels in the near-freezing Skagerrak sea last Friday. The captain said he had a foul smell “like a goat”, leading authorities to think he may have been a stowaway deep in the hull of a ship.
Authorities believe he could not have survived on the raft for more than two days, as he was tossed around in strong winds in a sea of about 2°C.
He suffered frostbite to his foot, but made a full recovery at a hospital in Gothenburg, where he is being held for questioning.
Detective inspector Peter Nydahl of the Gothenburg police said Williams was being kept at an immigration department apartment, where he was given food, warmth and access to internet and television.
“Although he doesn’t want to stay here he is satisfied for now, considering what he’s been through. If the tanker didn’t pick him up he would have died.”
Williams says he was born in Cape Town in 1959, and told immigration officials he wanted to become an American citizen. His fingerprints and identikit were sent to the US Embassy to verify if he had applied for a green card as he claimed.
Marie Andersson, a spokesperson for the Swedish immigration office, said Williams did not apply for asylum or a Swedish visa as aliens usually did.
Nydahl said in terms of the Aliens Law of Sweden, if his nationality remains a mystery, Williams can be kept in custody for two months, whereafter they can negotiate with his lawyer to extend it.