ACQUITTED SUSPECT: I WAS A SPY OF CIA AND UN BAZOOKA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000300660001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 5, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 10, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

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Sanitized - Approved For Release : Cl
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F: CIS AN ~ U
Uy 1nnuAwc '-.. '.o.,". Whatever sources a p0 ce
and Robert Parrella use to check out things like
of The Herald Tribune sin that proved unavailable to
,
After the charge against 1 m newspapers. "No comment,"
for' firing a bazooka shell - said the man at the CIA office
ward the United Nations bur d- in Washington.
ing was dismissed, Julio Pe ez Mr. Perez and his friends,
Guillermo and Ignacia Novo,
stood in a courthouse corri or brothers, appeared briefly be-
yesterday and told about s y- f9re Judge Shapiro yesterday
ing in Cuba for the CIA. to hear the case against them
As an ensign in the Cas ro dismissed.
Navy, he had been asked y
a CIA man in 1959 to "gat er
information about a constr c-
tion project near La Dom n-
ica," ho said. ,
"We thought at the ti re
they were building an offsh re
base which could be used or
refueling Soviet submari s
It was, we found out later a
missile base."
Slender and soft-spok n,
Mr. Perez told his tale in
heavily accented English oat-
side a Queens courtroom wh re
a judge had just thrown lit
charges against him and o
others for the weird bazoo a-
.shell firing at the UN he d-
quarters last December.
His self-claimed CIA sta us
had ended, according to r.
Perez' story, long before he
and two friends took a roc et
launcher they fad bou t
for $35 In a ' Times Square
store, planted it on a deb s-
littered Queens pier and f d
a deadly shell from it tow d
the UN building last Dec. 1.
The missile plopped low ly
,but harmlessly into the E t
BACKING
But the CIA story wa a
strange one and it had so e
`official backing. In court e-
fore Justice J. Irwin Shap o,
a detective' had been as ,led
about the Perez claim to h ve
been a CIA employee and e-
plied that, checked out by
lice, it'turne4 out t0 .be',t `e.
entirely on their own "con-
fessions" and, in line with'the
new restrictions on such'
self-incriminating statements,
Judge Shapiro had ruled a'
must be "destroyed and ex-;
punged" because the defend-' ur =" ?#'
ants' lawyer was not permit-
ted to be present whe
were taken.
Yesterday the judge urned
to assistant `District torney
Morton Greenspan. " ive me
your-?h6nett opinion," a said.,
"Excluding. the-confes ons, Is
there sufficient evid ce to
charge'these defentian ?".
"T rere is not," s d Mr.
-Greenspan.
In . the corridor, N[ Perez,
told , about working r the,
CIA. "I volunteered," e said.
"Sd did others."
Somehow, he said, t e word
'got out and a gro was
rounded up by the Castro
security people. The were
.;questioned for severs days,
Mr. Perez said. Then:
"Ten of us, includi g me..
were taken into a co rtyardi
and, put before a firing squad.)
We were told. we had o 'le last
chance to talk- or e e we
were 'going to die, o one
talked. They. fired at, s.
, "But it was blanks. 13 t t io '
of the men talked site that.
was so unnerved I had
a nervous breakdown.
didn't talk but I spent five;
months in a hospital."
How - had the' CIA ap-?..
.proached him? "I won't think
better tell you that,"
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How-"had he gotten out of:
uba? "In 1960. Friends
ielped me get a passport- ini
fake name. Then I flew on!
commercial ' airliner to
iami." '
Things were uneventful for'
while. Mr. Perez got 'a job
is a teletype technician and
eventually settled down at 247
Audubon Ave. in Manhattan,
with his wife and small child.
Eleven days after the UN
shelling, Mr. Perez and the'
Novo brothers were picked up,
but their lawyer, Peter James
Johnson, told Judge Shapiro `
last week, the Queens District
Attorney's office had refused,
to let him be present when
statements were taken from
his clients:
After, the Judge threw out
the case, Mr. Greenspan said
outside court there would be
an appeal.
Mr. Perez, before he started
talking about-the CIA, com-:
mented on the case, too. "I
feel very proud of American'
Justice," hp de`id. ~?.w '.. ,:L
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Sanitized - Approved For Release CFA-RDP75-00001 R000300660001-2