CHRISTIC INSTITUTE ATTEMPTS TO UNRAVEL CONTRA CONNECTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200920001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 12, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/29: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200920001-0
it December 1986
RISTIC INSTITUTE ATTEMPTS TO UNRAVEL CONTRA CONNECTIONS
IRIS KRASNOW
SHINGTON
Defendants in the suit, Including Maj. Gen. Richard Secord, Iranian-born
Albert Hakim and Virginia businessman Robert Owen, are now In the news In
connection with the murky U.S.-Iran-Contra deal.
''The Christie lawsuit laid out the story in May on how these
people are
working together as a team,'' Sheehan said. "Nobody understood therelatlonshio
at the time.-
The Christie Institute, a public interest law firm and policy center with a
liberal-religious leaning, is made up of a handful of lawyers best known for
winning a $10.5 million judgment for the family of Karen Silkwood, the plutonium
worker allegedly contaminated at the Kerr-McGee corporation.
Filed in May after a two-year investigation, the Miami suit charges the
defendants with taking part in a scheme to sell cocaine to Americans and use the
profits to are and train the Contras, the anti-Sandinista military force
battling the Nicaraguan government.
At that time, Sheehan told UPI his case would ''establish the guilt in
criminal conspiracies of high-ranking executives in the White House who will be
Impeached in 1987," adding, "there is some evidence suggestive of the
involvement of current CIA and National Security Council officials."
Vice Adm. John Poindexter, head of the National Security Council, and NSC
official Lt. Col. Oliver North tumbled from power Nov. 25 for their role in a an
operation that diverted profits to the Contras of up to $30 million from U.S.
arms sales to Iran.
Today, the 40-year-old Sheehan says of his
going as planned." Since spring 1984, he has kept latFiileilabeled 1 Things are
"Impeachment" in his office 12 blocks from the Capitol.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of husband-and-wife journalists Tony Avirgan
and Martha Honey after Avirgan was seriously wounded along with two dozen others
in the May 1984 bombing of the La Penca, Nicaragua, headquarters of
anti-Sandinista rebel Eden Pastora.
Five people were killed in what the lawsuit charges was a plot orchestrated
by a secret team to assassinate Pastora. Pastora was allegeCly targeted because
he refused to join forces with the F.D.N., a rival Contra army that he
considered a puppet of the CIA.
Accgrding to the suit, a Costa Rican ranch managed by an expatriate American
named~John Hull served as a base for the secret team, composed of right-wing
mercenaries who also smuggled cocaine and heroin into the United States to
finance arms to the Contras.
The suit alleges the La Penca bombing was mapped out at the ranch, and that
its airstrips were the crossroads for incoming U.S. Flights loaded with guns and
explosives, and planes carrying narcotics to Miami.
Among the two dozen defendants named are Hull;
ontra Nicaraguan Democratic Force; retired Maj. Adolfo Calera, head of the
he board of the World Antl-Communist League; and Gformer CIA nglaub
Officials chairman of
heodoe Shockley an omas Clines.
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Defendant Hull sued Haney and Avirgan for libel, in a Costa Rican court
the case was dismissed. , but
Other defendants, charged six months ago with ''operating through businesses
such as CSF Investments Ltd. to unlawfully purchase and transport arms and
explosives," are now surfacing in the news:
-Secord, former deputy assistant secretary of defense, reportedly directed
the Purchase of C-1231( aircraft for the Contras through a Swiss finance firm,
Compagnie de Services Fiduciaires S.A., also known as CSF Investments Ltd. CSF's
bank account in the Cayman Islands was reported to be the recipient of money
from the Iranian arms sale.
-- `Ra f g ''Chi Chi'' Qui torn ,.Cuban exile and CIA contract employee during
the aborted 196
1 Bay of
Pigs invasion, reportedly coordinated U.S. arms
shipments through Costa Rica to be flown to Nicaragva.
-Hakim, a native Iranian and California-ba
sed business associate of Secord,
said to have been the financial mastermind of the scheme to aid Nicaraguan
rebels with profits from U.S. arms sales to Iran.
-Virginia businessman Owen, charged in the suit with ' 'conspiring to provide
money for the purchase of explosives and arms,'' was North's reported liaison
with the Contras.
Owen's business card was found on the body of the co-pilot of the American
C-123K that was carrying arms to the Contras when it was shot down Oct. 5.
Eugene Hasenfus, sole survivor of the flight, was tried and sentenced to 30
years in a Nicaraguan prison.
Sheehan, testifying to the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs
Oct. 15., charged the executive branch with cooperating in at least part of the
scheme.
In part, his statement said he thinks his evidence showed ''the United States
executive branch personnel willfully violated the 1984 Boland Amendment passed
by Congress forbidding U.S. government officials from providing either direct or
indirect military aid to the Contra forces ...',
In early fall, Congress approved $100 million in Contra aid to become
effective fiscal 1987, lifting the ban.
The suit also alleges that Shackley has been involved in the drug trade since
1965, when he began a long stint in Laos for the CIA. According to the suit,
he aided a man named Van Pao to become the region's orinI_ioal opium trafficker
by arranging the assassination of competitors.
In return, the suit charges, Shackley's team, which 1:1cluded CIA agent
Clines, received a percentage of the income from van Pao s 'China white',
heroin sales, using the money to establish a political asassination operation
based in Laos.
When Vice President George Bush was CIA deputy director of operations in
1976, Shackley was the agency's director of covert operations.
''The biggest shock for the American people is going to be the drugs,''
Sheehan said. ''The massive drug smuggling that's been used to help finance the
Contra weapons to the tune of at least a ton of cocaine per week coming into
this country that we know of.
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''The major influx of cocaine into the United States comes from Colombia `
through Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa (also defendants in the suit) through the
Costa Rican connection on John u s farm into Miami.?'
Escobar and Ochoa have been indicted several times for smuggling drugs in
Florida and are currently fugitives.
In court documents, Ochoa and his family are said to control a ''massive''
cocaine manufacturing and distribution network within the notorious Medel':n
Cartel out of Colombia.
Sheehan based his allegations linking gun running to drug trafficking on
''first-hand accounts from high-level DEA officials, customs agents, officials, pilots who flew drugs and arms, and guys inside the ministry of
security down in Costa Rica,'' who may be called as witnesses. ex- ~.a
He is aware his conclusions are hard to believe, but the former investigator
in the office of F. Lee Bailey is unfazed.
' ' It was the same thing In the SIlkwood case, " said Sheehan. h
fought and struggled to get the case Into trial, and " We fourt and
crazy. " people thought we were
Sheehan said he will file a 100-page affidavit in Miami federal court Dec. 15
in which allegations of the executive branch's early involvement in gun
smuggling to the Contras are spelled out.
So far the case has cost the institute s75,000, all donated funds. As a
public interest law firm, the staff receives no legal fees or percentage of
settlements.
Three Christic Institute attorneys on the Contra case are up against two
dozen big law firms representing the defendants. One opposing lawyer is Anthony
Lapham, general counsel for the CIA from 1976-1980, who was retained b Contra
leader Calero. Y tra
Sheehan called the unearthed U.S.-Iran-Contra connection a ''blessing'' for
his case. If his investigation proceeds with sub eona
Watergate II he predicted will ''start being played out by summer 1987.'
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