PRESS ARTICLES SEPTEMBER 10, 1984[SANITIZED] - 1984/09/10
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Keywords:
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00041111
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Publication Date:
September 10, 1984
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The Associated Press
PAGE 1
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The
ociated Press.
September 10, 1984, Monday, Ph cycle
SECTION: International News
LENGTH: 729 words
HEADLINE: Bomber At Rebel Conference Still At Large
BYLINE: An AP Extra, By REID G. MILLER, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, Costa Rica
KEYWORD: Bomber-at-Large
BODY:
He is slender and muscular, about six feet tall with hooded, blue-grey eyes
a professional assassin with innocent blood on his hands and little threat of
capture.
More than three months ago, he exploded a bomb by remote control at a news
conference at a rural guerrilla camp in southern Nicaragua, killing four people
and injuring 24 others.
Today his identity and whereabouts remain a mystery.
Costa Rican authorities, whose investigation was slow to start and has been
marred by errOrs, admit that their probe has come to a dead end for lack of any
solid clues,
The principal target of the attack was Eden Pastora, the anti-Sandinista
chieftain known as "Commander Zero," who suffered burns and shrapnel wounds.
Killed were a Nicaraguan rebel and three reporters, including Linda Frazier,
381 a writer for an English-language weekly newspaper in San Jose and the wife
of an Associated Press correspondent. four of the injured were hurt so badly
they still remain under medical care.
Although the explosion on May 30 occurred on Nicaraguan soil, Costa Rica
undertook tte investigation on the assumption the assassination attempt had been
plotted within its boundaries.
After the blast, investigators let 4$ hours elapse before barring the exit
from the country of witnesses and others who sight have been involved.
Tony Avirgan, an ABC-TV correspondent injured in the explosion, found himself
detained as a prime suspect three days after the blast. �
At first he was denied exit from the country to seek medical treatment for a
badly mangled hand. He was interrogated in his hospital bed in San Jose for
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The Associated Press, September ID) 1984
more than five hours before receiving permission to fly to the United States.
Three weeks ago, police showed up at the home of hark Baillie� a
corresponoent for the Reuters news agency, with a search warrant naming him as
the possible terrorist.
Baillie, who is short, stocky and bears no facial resemblance to the prime
suspect, was able to clear himself with a call to the British Embassy, and the
police retreated apologetically after a three-hour search of his house.
Authorities agree that the man they really want was posing as a
photojournalist and traveling under a stolen passport that identified hit as Per
Anker Hansen.
The real Per Anker Hansen, a Danish architect, reported his passport
missing four years ago and has never been to Central America.
Two days after the explosion, reporters visited the small, cheap hotel in
downtown San JOSe where the terrorist lived for almost a month before the
assassination attempt. Iney were able to obtain a record of his telephone calls
from the switchboard operator.
But it was another three days before Costa Ricar investigators got to the
hotel, too late to find any fingerprints. They then spent hours trying to find
the "suspicious foreigners" . actually newsmen who had been trying to trace
some of the real suspect's calls.
The man known as Hansen had traveled with legitimate journalists to
Pastora's camp on the northern bank of the San Juan River, which marks the
eastern boundary between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Carrying an aluminum
equipment case.
In that case, investigators say, was a bomb made of plastic explosive and
metal shrapnel, which he touched off with a hand-held detonator after slipping
unobtrusively from the riverside building minutes before Pastora began his
news conference.
According to witnesses, he then forced himself into one of the first boats
evacuating the wounded and was taken to a regional hospital for treatment of
what doctors later said were two minor cuts. He took a taxi to San Jose the next
morning. There, he checked out Of hiS hotel and disappeared.
Photographs of the suspect taken before and after the explosion have been
distributed to law enforcement agencies worldwide.
Theories abound on whom employed him.
Custls Winsor, the U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, has speculated that the
terrorist was employed by Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.
Pastora, who has recovered from his injuries, has variously attributed the
crime to the Sandinistas, then CIA and to enemies within his own anti-Sandinista
group.
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The Associated Press, September 10, 1984
ENIOR'S NDE Reid G. Miller, an Associated Press correspondent based in
San Jose, Wa5 one of the reporters covering the Eden Pastora news conference
at which the bombing occurred, and was among those wounded.
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Copyright a 1984 The Washington Post
August 28, 1984, Tuesday, final Edition
SECTION: first Section; Al2
LENGTH: 1De7 wors
HEADLINE: Costa Rica Stymied in Hunt for Assassin
BYLINE: By Edward Cody, Washington Post foreign Service
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, Costa Rica
KEYWORD: E.RICA
BODY:
' The assassin who tolled three reporters and a guerrilla in an attempt to blow
up Nicaraguan rebel leader Eden Pastore three months ago has vanished, leaving
behind rage and poistery but no solid leads.
Costa Rican investigators Say they have come to a dead end in their effort to
establish his identity and whereabouts, and await answers from police in other
countries to queries sent out about the prime suspect. But with no major
government intelligence agency putting a high priority on the search, diplomatic
Sources acknowledge, the man who tried to kill the anti-Sandinista guerrilla
leader, Killing four other people and wounding two dozen in the process, is
likely to remain free for other assignments in the future.
Eased on interrogation of reporters present at the May 30 blast, Costa Rican
investigators are convinced it was set Off by 3 bearded man posing as a
photographer and carrying a stolen Danish passport identifying him as Per Anker
Hansen. The aluminum camera case he was carrying, they say, was packed with C4
plastic explosive ane detonated by signals from a small radio device found later
near the shack wrere Pastore had just begun a news conference.
The investigators know the assassin was not Hansen. The real Hansen, a
Danish architect who reported his passport stolen four years ago, has never been
to Central America. They also believe the Killer was not a photographer. The
agency he said he works for does not exist and french authorities report nobody
ever heard of or saw him at the Paris address he listed On registering at the
Gran Via Hotel in San Jose.
Instead, inquiries about the bomber produce a picture of a ruthless
professional trained in living underground without leaving a trail and backed up
by�enOugh resources to carry out his mission with reliable technology and at
least two Seta De false documents.
Although not conclusive, sources close to the investigation say, this points
to a government intelligence agency or well Organized Underground group as
sponsor of the assassination attempt. Those following the Case have speculated
in all directions, usually In line with their political leanings.
Curtin Winsor, the U.S. ambassador here, has announced that Nicaragua's
Sandinista government is the logical author of the crime. But some of
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0 1984 The Washington Post , August 28, 1964
Pastora's associates, with no more to go on than Wirsor, have pointed at the
CIA. Still others have suggested the bomber was workirg for the Nicaraguan
Democratic Force, a rival anti-Sandinista group that, at CIA urging, was seeking
an alliance that Pastora would not accept.
Pastora, new recovered from burns suffered in the bombing, has publicly
blamed the CIA. Just as publicly, however, he has suggested it could have been
the Sandinistas, rival guerrillas or colleagues with whom he was feuding over
the suggested alliance. Close associates say the flamboyant guerrilla chief has
no proof for any of the speculation.
Some Costa Rican investigators have privately underlined two elements they
say point suspicion at Nicaraguan intelligence. first are reports from
undisclosed sources that the assassin left Costa Rica overland for Nicaragua the
day after the explosion. Second, they say, the method used May 30 resembled an
earlier attempt to assassinate Pastora, privately attributed by Costa Rican
Officials to Sandinista intelligence agents.
In that attempt, June 29, 1983, a Nicaraguan was killed and a second injured
when a bomb they were carrying to a meeting here with Pastora exploded
prematurely. Against this background, Investigators here note that the radio
device used to detonate the May 30 bomb used two frequencies, a precaution they
say was designed to prevent premature explosion by stray signals from other
radios such as walkie-talkies.
Eut unless the killer is captured and interrogated, investigators say, these
leads are little more than informed speculation. Angel Edmund� Solano, Costa
Rica's recently dismissed public security minister, has acknowledged that
authorities here moved too slowly to detain witnesses and gather evidence in the
first hours after the blast.
The man posing as Hansen had left the riverside Shack, just Inside the
Nicaraguan border, moments before the bomb exploded at 7:20 p.m. He was among
the first to climb into boats taking wounded to nearby Ciudad Guesada in Costa
Rica, according to reporters on the scene, despite the fact that he was only
slightly wounded.
At a hospital in Ciudad Guesada, he was treated for minor cuts, doctors
recorded. It was there that photographers took the pictures that Costa Rican
authorities and news agencies have distributed around the world.
During his overnight stay, he also gave an interview to Radio Cita of Ciudad
Guesada, describing the bombing scene, and asked nurses whether a woman had come
asking for him. The next morning he traveled by taxi to San Jose with Peter
Torbiornsson, a Swedish television producer with whom he had traveled in search
of Pastora in previous weeks.
The pair arrived at the &ran Via Hotel about 10:30 a.m. Torbiornsson went to
a San Jose hospital for treatment of his wounds and the man calling himself
Hansen paid his hotel bill and dropped out Of sight.
Since then, investigators of the Costa Rican Intelligence and Security
Directorate, under Salm�, and the Organization for Judicial Investigations, an
arm of the courts, say they have established few details about the killer.
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I; 1984 The Washington Post August 28, 1984
Analysis of the interview tape indicates his Spanish was native, despite his
claim to be Danish and efforts to fake an accent. Some who have heard the tape
believe the intonations are those of the southern countries of South America.
There is no record of his having left the country after the bombing, and
airline and immigration officials have no recollection of anyone matching his
description flying out May 31 or Jmne 1. Nor is there any record of a departure
by Patricia Anne Boone Marescot, te identity in the french passport, also
stolen, of a woman who had traveled with the so-called Hansen during earlier
recorded exits and entries around Central America.
Various reports generated by distribution of the photographs -- that the
killer was, a Basque terrorist, a Uruguayan rightist or a Uruguayan leftist --
have led investigators nowhere. Part of the problem, they say, is that police
agencies in other countries have been slow to respond to the Costa Rican
queries.
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Copyright al 1984 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
Latin America Weekly Report
July 27, 1964
SECTION: URAGWAY; WR-64-29; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 413 words
HEADLINE: POLITICS: Tupataros cast a shadow;
DARk DEEDS OF THE PAST HAUNT THE PRESENT
BODY:
Aldunate and General Liter Seregni back on the scene, it was only a matter of
time before those other protagonists of the early 19705, the Tupamaros, made an
appearance.
The MovitLento de Liberacion Nacional (MLN-Tupamaros) is no longer a
political force. But three separate incidents have brought its name back into
the limelight in recent weeks.
* A military tribunal has finally sentenced tnree MLN leaders -- Julio Angel
Marenales Saenz, Henry Willy Engler Golovchenko an Marcos Mauricio Rosencoff.
They have al.eady served 12 years In prison, apparently without trial. The
reason for recalling their existence now, as the government has just done, is
apparently to link them to the Blanco party leader, Ferreira Aldunate. He was
clapped in jail as soon as he arrived tack in Uruguay from exile in June and is
awaiting trial on distinctly flimsy charges of subverting public order. The
authorities now claim that he took part in a meeting with two of these three
Tupamaro leaders, Rosencoff and Marenales Saenz, at an unspecified date -- a
completely new charge, according to the Blanco leader's lawyers.
a Another MLN prisoner, Adolfo Wasim Alaniz, is on hunger strike. He, too,
has been in jail for 12 years and is now suffering from cancer. A group of
faithful supporters have been demonstrating daily in central Montevicleo to
demand his release. The government has so far responded only with a communique
listing the crimes he is charged with.
� The third reminder of the former urban guerrilla group comes from an
article in the Colorado party paper, Opinar, which reprints infomation from the
Spanish weekly lnterviu about the Tupamaro deserter, Hector Amodio Perez.
Amodio was a key defector from the MLN in 1972. He deliberately betrayed some
30 hideouts, including the carcel del pueblo, a field hospital, and a number of
arsenals and documentation centres (LA VI, 35).
It was his 'information', too, which Was Used to prepare the military's case
against senator Enrique Erro of the Frente AmpliO. The executive's demand for
the removal of Erro'S parliamentary immunity was one of the factors which
precipitated the constitutional crisis of hay-June 1973 and the final imposition
of military rule.
Opinar and Interviu now claim that Amodio was Infiltrated into the MLN by the
CIA. They also say that he was the author of the assassination attempt against
the Nicaraguan contra leader, Eden Pastora, in Nicaragua in June this year,
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Copyright t 1984 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
Latin Ame ort
SECTION: uRAGWAI; WF-84-29;
LENGTH: 413 wprds
HEADLINE: POOTICS: Tupamaros cast a shadow;
DAR: DEEDS OF THE PAST HAUNT THE PRESENT
BODY:
... far responded only with a communique listing the crimes he is charged
with.
� The third reminder of the former urban guerrilla group comes from an
article in the Colorado party paper, Opinar, which reprints infomation from the
Spanish weekly Interviu about the Tupamaro deserter, Hector Amodio Perez.
Amodio was a key defector from the MLN in 1972. He deliberately betrayed Some
30 hideouts, including the carcel del pueblo, a field hospital, and a number of
arsenals and documentation centres (LA VI, 35).
It Was his 'information', too, which was used to ...
LEVEL 1 - 2 Of 8 STORIES
Copyright t 1976 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
SECTION: LA ), 7; Pg. 54
LENGTH: 1010 words
HEADLINE: Argentina: operation cross the road
BODY:
OrganisatiOn's challenge to Peron and its return to clandestine
resistance. It is quite nicely that Dana Tea has some idea of gmulating the
Uruguayan army officers who Succeeded in splitting the Tupamaros over the issue
Of connotation with the armed forces. This led directly to the defection of
Hector Amodio Perez and the virtual destruction of the TupamarOs In Early
1972.
It is, however, not necessarily 'non-aarxist to wish to collaborate with the
armed forces. Throughout Latin America Noscow-line Communist Parties have been
urging such a strategy on anyone prepared to listen. It is also
LEVEL 1 - 3 OF 6 STORIES
Copyright e 1973 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
Latin America
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0 1973 Latin American td., May 18, 1973
SECTION: NEWS IN BRIEF; LA VII,
LENGTH: 250 words
HEADLINE: Uruguay
PAGE 2
EDDY:
... an exceptionally tense situation, unresolved at mid-week, the senate on
Tuesday night refused the government's request for the lifting of the
parliamentary immJnity of senator Enrique Erro, accused of links with the
Tupamaro guerrilla organization. TIT charges': made by Hector Amodio Perez, a
Tupamaro defector in military Custody, have been flatly denied by Erro, but the
armed forces have been insisting on his arrest. To add to their pressure on
parliament, the armed forces moved troops from the interior into Montevideo, and
stationed SOME of them outside the parliament ...
LEVEL 1 - 4 OF 8 STORIES
Copyright fi 1973 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
Latin America
May it, 1973
SECTION: LA VII, 19; Pg. 146
LENGTH: 570 words
HEADLINE: Uruguay: on many fronts
BODY:
... remains evident that the military did not win an outright victory last
February. The limits of military power and authority have not yet been properly
tested, and it may require a new institutional crisis to indicate where the
frontier runs. , On Monday, Hector Amodio Perez, a former leader of the
Tupamarc* who defected last year Isee Vol. VI, No. 351, was brought before the
senate committee, which is considering the Erro case, and repeated his charge
that the senator had sheltered Tupamaros. The appearance of Amodio Perez, still
evidently ...
LEVEL 1 - 5 OF 8 STORIES
Copyright 6 1973 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
Latin America
May 4, 1973
SECTION: NEWS IN BRIEF; LA VII, 18; Pg. 144
LENSTN: 150 words
HEADLINE: Urupay
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6 1973 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd., May 4, 1973
BODY:
... in the morning newspapers. Erro, a ffiember of the left-wing Frente
Amplio, was accrsed -- on the testimony of captured guerrillas. -- of having
Sheltered Tupamaros in his house. Erro denies the care and observers noted
that the evidence came from known Tupamaro defectors, including Hector Amodio
Perez, or from prisoners who suffered particularly from torture, such as
Alicia Rey. A number of other prisoners denied Erro's involvement. Eordaberry
Ordered the cicse for three days of those newspapers which printed the details
Of the charges against Erro.
LEVEL 1 - 6 OF 8 STORIES
Copyright 6 1972 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
Latin America
November ID, 1972
SECTION: LA VI, 45; Pg. 354
L(NGTH: 990 wo-ds
HEADLINE: Uruguay: fatal decay
EDDY:
... Ex-defence minister Augusto Legrani, Over hi S demand that the head of
army intelligence, Colonel Carlos Trabal, be dismissed for withholding
information from the minister (see Vol. VI, No. 43). The particular documents
which caused the trouble were tne 'memoirs' of the lupamaro 'traitor', Hector
Amodio Perez (See VOL VII No. 35) and so a manifesto (authorship unknown),
circulating among senior officers app re a to be an attempt to achieve a
political consensus within th t was a measure of the desperate
pass which had been reached
LEVE F 8 STORIES
Copyright 6 1972 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
Latin America
September it 1972
. SECTION: LA VI, 35; Pg. 279
LENGTH: 670 words
HEADLINE: Uruguay: under torture
BODY:
... security forces may well have been given by the fact that their great
coups in April and Hay (see Vol. VI, NOS. 16 6 221 all stemmed from one major
betrayal) and not from consistently improving intelligence. The traitor is now
known to have been Hector Amodio Perez -- for long a Key figure in the
Tupamaros' upper command. His decision to betray hiS Comrades was not made
under torture, but rather followed a collective decision to reduce his authority
in view of his evident personal ambitions, according to ...
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Copyright t 1972 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.;
Latin America
March 10, 1972
SECTION: NEWS IN BRIEF; LA VI, 10; P. 80
LENGTH: 40 words
HEADLINE: Uruguay
FODY:
Police have arrested two Tupamaro leaders, Hector Amodio Perez and Jorge
Manera Lluveras, who were both among the 10L prisoners who escaped last
SeptemDer. SOME 18 alleged lupamaros have been detained during the past 10
days.
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The Associated Press
PAGE 7
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
materials may not be republished without the express written Consent of The
Associated Press.
June 21, 1984, Thursday, PM cycle
SECTION: International News
LENGTH: 782 words
BYLINE: An AP Extra By CARL MANNING, Associated Pres5 Writer
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, Costa Rica
VEYWORD: Costa Rica Bombing
BODY:
Off to a slow start and diverted by false leads, Costa Rican authorities have
not solved the bombing that Killed four people and wounded 27 at a news
conference by Nicaraguan rebel leader Eden Pastora,
Police officials have issued an international arrest warrant for a man who
posed as a Danish photographer, but they Co not know his true Identity or where
he might have gone. And they Co not know who was behind the attempt to kill
Pastora.
Authorities didn't begin their investigation until four days after the May 30
bombing. And they started on a cold trail that abruptly ended at a downtown
hotel where the wanted man was last seen a day after the explosion.
The bombing occurred just inside Nicaragua On the banks Of the San Juan River
that divides the two nations. The bomb went off as Pastora, military leader of
the Costa Rican-based Revolutionary Democratic Alliance, began talking to
reporters who had traveled from San Jose to hi 5 headquarters.
The blast killed an American journalist, two Costa Rican journalists and a
rebel.
Costa Rican authorities say the man probably entered the room in the wooden
building with a "military-type mine" in an aluminum case and triggered it by
remote control while standing Outside.
The man called himself Per Anker Hansen.
About three weeks before the bombing he checked into the downtown Bran Via
Hotel where he made friends with a Swedish television producer, Peter
Torbiornsson. The two took some trips together before the bombing and they made
the trip to the news conference together.
As it turned out, the man had a passport stolen in 1980 from a Per Anker
Hansen in Copenhagen who told Danish authorities he has never been to Central
America.
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The Associated Press, June 211 1984
Torbiornsson said the wanted man spoke 'very bad Danish.' But Iorbiornsson
saio he did not think anything was amiss until after the bombing when press
reports began implicating the ran.
Costa Rican authorities are investigating because the explosion involved
Costa Rican citizens and at least part of its planning is presumed to have been
done in Costa Rica.
One official, who discussed the case on condition he not be identified,
conceded that the authorities moved too slowly in the beginning and rade a
'serious mistake" by not dusting for fingerprints in the tan's hotel room. They
first went to the hotel on June 5 , three days after Hansen's name first
Surfaced in local newspapers as a possible suspect.
A judge on June 3 ordered all journalists at the news conference detained in
the country until questioned by authorities. Officials now say they should have
closed the borders earlier.
At one time, authorities felt the man they wanted might be Spanish, based on
a taped interview with reporter hours after the bombing.
They even had a name for the man _ Jose Miguel Lujua Gorostiola. But that
lead fell apart when french police said Gorostiola had been under house arrest
and had not left France in several months.
Meanwhile, an Uruguayan exile living in Sweden said he recognized a
photograph of the wanted ran made at the bombing scene and that he was a fellow
Uruguayan now living in Venezuela. Authorities, however, have not been able to
confirr that.
Costa Rican Investigators last week went to Panama in hopes of finding some
clue to the man's identity there. Agents of the Judicial Investigations
Organization say they learned a man calling himself Per Anker Hansen entered
Panama in May 1982, adding they feel it was the same man.
The agents said they also are looking for a woman who traveled with a bogus
french passport and Was on the same jetliner as the phony Dane when he landed in
San Jose from Los Angeles in October. Like 6 Hansen, " authorities do not Know
the woman's identity or what role, if any, she played in the bombing.
. One agent, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said authorities have
pieced together from immigration records that the man and woman apparently
traveled together on at least eight occasions in or out of Costa Rica.
Also unanswered by authorities is the question of why the bombing occurred.
Some Pastora supporters have said that the attack could have come from either
the left or the right of the political spectrum in Central America.
Pastora, who was wounded in the explosion and now is recovering in
Venezuela, had called the news conference to explaim his reasons for refusing to
join the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, a military group fighting the Nicaraguan
government with the support of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA had been putting pressure on Pastora and the Revolutionary
Democratic Alliance of Nicaraguan rebels based in Costa Rica to merge with the
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Copyright I 1984 The New York limes Company;
Ire New York Times
June 14, 1984, Thursday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section A; Page 4, Column 3; foreign Desk
LENGTH: 102 words
HEADLINE: ATTACg ON PASTORA: MUCH INTRIGUE BUT FEW FACTS
BYLINE: By RICHARD J. MEISLIN
DATELINE: MEXICO CITY, June 13
TwO weeks after a bombing attack on Eden Pastora Gomez, an anti-Sandinista
rebel leader, the Costa Rican authorities have established a Key suspect - a man
who, using a stolen Danish passport; traveled the region in recent months posing
as a photographer.
That is nearly all they know.
The man's identity retains a mystery. His current whereabouts is unknown. for
whom he was working, if anyone, at the time of the blast has not been
determined. lt is not known whether he acted alone or with the help of others.
Tile pomp, which went off at a crowded news conference in Nicaragua near the
Costa Rican border, killed four people - three journalists and an
anti-Sandinista rebel - and wounded more than two dozen other people, including
Mr. Pastora. At the same time, it introauced a new and less predictable type
of terrorism into the long- running conflict in Central America and sharply
increased tension among and within the opposing factions.
The investigation has been hampered by false leads, conflicting political
interests and the fact that the bombing took place in a rebel-controlled area
that the Costa Ricans have no jurisdiction to enter and the Nicaraguans have no
ability to enter. Various investigations and interested parties have
concentrated on different possible motives for the attack, generally in line
with their political orientation.
A False Lead Is Abandoned
Costa Rican Government investigators spent days pursuing a lead that the
mysterious photographer, who went by the name of Per Anker Hansen, was
actually Jose Miguel Lujua GorostiOla, a member Of the Basque separatist group
E.T.A. While the two men bear some facial Similarities, this lead was abandoned
when the French authorities told Costa Rica that Mr. Lujua Gorostiola was under
a form of house arrest in France and had not been out of the country in several
months.
A Uruguayan exile in Sweden Said Monday that he recognized the key suspect as
a fellow Uruguayan with whom he engaged in leftist political activities in the
late 1960's and early 1970's. The exile, who asked not to be identified for
security reasons; said in a telephone interview that the man was now living in
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Venezuela. He said the man's name had been turned over to Interpol, the
international police cooperative organization.
The motives for the bombing remain a matter of speculation. Ine explosion
took place at a time of heavy pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency on
the two major groups fighting the Sandinista Government - the Democratic
Revolutionary Alliance based in Costa Rica and the Honduran-based Nicaraguan
Democratic Force. The C.I.A. has sought to consolidate their forces, a move that
hr. Pastora strongly opposes unless the group based in Honduras expels some
leaders who were in the national guard of Anastasio Somoza Debayle when he was
Nicaragua's dictator. The bombing came as well at a time when the Nicaraguan
6overnment appears to feel increasing pressure from armed and unarmed opponents.
Pastora's Y:ew Wavers
Mr. Pastore has wavered between blaming the C.I.A., the Honduran-based
rebels and the Sandinistas. "For several months, the C.I.A. has been preparing
the ground, mounting a campaign against me, saying I am the only obstacle to
unification witn the Nicaraguan Democratic Force," he said shortly before being
flown to Cara:as for medical treatment. "This attack is punishment for not
yielding."
United States officials have promoted the idea that the Sandinistas were to
blame, possibly acting through the Easque separatist group. A State Department
spokesman said today, however, that the United States had "no indepenoent
confirmation of who might be responsible." The idea has been strongly pursued
by the Costa Rican Government with little result.
Ambassador Curtin Winsor Jr., speaking Of the Sandinistas, said: "There's
nobody else I can think of who would have the motive. The C.I.A. doesn't do this
kind of thing."
Despite the initial failure to establish a link to E.T.A., Costa Rica is
still looking for an E.T.A. role, according to an official involved in tne
investigation. "The E.T.A. Was launched on the streets to cause confusion," he
said of rumors about E.T.A. involvement, adding that it was his belief that as a
result, the Costa Rican investigation "will COME to nothing."
Rebels Check 2 Possibilities
Meanwhile, investigators from the rebel group based in Costa Rica, which is
known by its initials in Spanish as ARDE, are looking more closely at two
possibilities. One is that the attack could have been the result of increased
friction in Its Own ranks because the majority of its people are said to be
willing to consolidate with the Honduran forces. lhe other possibility is that
the attack sight have been an effort by the Honduran-based rebel group to
eliminate Mr. Pastora and therefore the obstacles to consolidation.
For the Sandinistas, an ARDE investigator said, "the fact is that it is
politically more convenient to have him alive and causing divisions." Of the
C.I.A., he said, "It's not their style."
Little is known about the key suspect in the bombing.
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a, 1984 The New York Times, June 14, 1984
The imposter had been in the region since at least February and perhaps since
October, according to Costa Rican investigators, an had entered and left the
Country at least Slx times on trips to Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Mexico.
He said hE Was representing a Paris-based photo agency called Europe 7, which
does not appear to exist. He usea the Danish passport of Per Anker Hansen, a
young architect who later said his passport was stolen in a robbery about four
years ago.
Few Details On Imposter
In the month before the bombing, the imposter traveled with a Swedish
journalist and television producer, Peter Torbiornsson, who has been working on
a documentary on Central America, and his Bolivian assistant, Luis Fernando
Prado. According to Mr. Prado and Mr. Torbiornsson, they met in early May at the
Hotel Gran Via, a modern but somewhat rundown hotel in downtown San Jose, the
capital of Ccsta Rica.
Mr. Prado, in an Interview Saturday in San Jose's Hospital Mexico, where he
is recovering from wounds received in the blast, also mentioned that the
supposed Danish aournaliSt appeared to be familiar with Uruguay. 1
"WE were talking one night about where would be the best place to be," he
recalled. "I said the Obelisk in Buenos Aires at midnight. He said the Port of
Montevideo at 10:30, or something like that."
Mr. Prado aaid the supposed Dane spoke little Danish, a fact that both he ano
Mr. Tortiornsaon said struck them as odd only after press reports began linking
the imposter to the bombing. He Said they talked with the imposter mostly in
English and that "his Spanish was forced," as if he was trying to disguise an
accent. He also said that the imposter "knew idioms from a lot of places."
The three men made two trips together to rebel territory. The first was from
May 17 to 22, according to Mr. Prado, when they visited rebel camps and tried
without success to find Mr. Pastora. The secono was on May 30, the day of the
bombing.
Camera Case is Suspect
Although he used only three cameras - a Pentax, a Nikon and a Polaroid,
according to Mr. Prado - the man carried a bulky aluminum camera case on both
trips. The authorities now believe, based on metal fragments found at the site
and in the victims, that this Case Contained the bomb used in the attack.
The bomb exploded at 7:20 P.M., just as a group of journalists had gathered
around Mr. Pastora to hear him explain his reasons for refusing to ally his
forces with the Honduras-based rebels. The man who called himself Per Anker
Hansen had left the room only moments before, according to witnesses.
Photographs taken just after the blast show hip looking dazed but relatively
unharmed, lying against a group of barrels outside the Stilted building where
the news conference was taking place, not far from the Stairs leading to the
entrance. Although he was practically unscathed, he was the first, other
reporters said, to board the boats that took the wounded to a hospital in Ciudad
Ouesada, in northern Costa Rica.
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1984 The New York Times, June 14, 1984
At the hospital, where he was found to have only minor cuts, the imposter
gave an interview to a local radio station in which he described himself as
"really lucky." Speaking in nearly flawless and unaccented Spanish, he said he
"was on the stairs and fell to the floor" when the explosion took place.
The Trail Ends
The imposter left the hospital early the next morning with Mr. Torbiornsson,
and they returned to the capital by taxi. Hours later he told Mr. Torbiornsson
he was leaving the country and, in what officials new concede was a major flaw
in their investigation, he apparently was able to dO so.
Early reports said he boarded an Air Florida plane for a direct flight to
Miami, but the name of Per Anker Hansen does not appear on the flight roster
Or in Costa Rican immigration records. A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of
Investigation in Miami Said Monday that the agency was trying to determine
whether he had entered the United States, but it had been unable to do so.
A Costa Rican investigator said the authorities established that the imposter
had headed for the airport, stopping along the way to change money, but did not
know whether te had boarded a flight. He said the imposter was believed to have
changed money from dollars into Costa Rican colons, which could indicate that he
intended to travel by land or even remain in the country. The authorities have
been unable to trace hit beyond that point.
GRAPHIC: photc of Eden Pastora Gomez
SULJECT: BOMES AND BOMB PLOTS; CIVIL WAR AND GUERRILLA WARFARE; IMPERSONATIONS;
PASSPORTS; ASSASSINATIONS AND ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATIDNS
NAME: MEISLIN, RICHARD J; PASTORA GOMEZ, EDEN; HANSEN, PER ANKER
GEOGRAPHIC: NICARAGUA; COSTA RICA
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LEVEL 2 - 5 OF 8 STORIES
Proprietary to the United Press International $964
June 13, 1984, Wednesday, PM cycle
SECTION: International
LENGTH: 315 words
HEADLINE: Costa Rica seeks additional suspect in Pastora bombing
BYLINE: By PATRICIA WALSH
DAIELINE: SAN JOSE, Costa Rica
VEYwORD: Pastva
tiny:
Costa Ricans investigating the bomb that injured Nicaraguan rebel Eden
Pastora have a new suspect -- a journalist believeC to be the son of a close
associate to revolutionary Che Guevara.
Francisco Ruiz, spokesman for the Judicial Investigation Organization, said
Tuesday a secord person who identified himself as a journalist and attended the
ill-fated news conference on May 30 was under investigation.
Ruiz refused to identify the suspect, who Was still in San Jose, but said
"It is a probability" the man was the son of a close associate of the
legendary revolutlonary Che 6uevara.
Guevara, an Argentine, was one of Cuban President Fidel Castro's top
assistants and Was Pilled in Bolivia in 1967 while trying to launch a
revolution.
Ruiz said al investigation showed the new suspect had lived recently in
Nicaragua and had traveled various times to Cuba.
Costa Rican authorities said last week they were searching for a man and a
woman accomplice believed connected with the bombing attempt that killed nine
people and injured 28, including Pastora.
The first sJspect, a ran posing as a journalist and traveling with a stolen
Danish passport in the name of Per Anker Hansen, vas believed to have fled
Costa Rica two days after the assassination attempt on Pastora at his
'headquarters inside Nicaragua.
Police originally identified a Basque terrorist as the main suspect but
French authorities said the man had been under house arrest in southern France.
Authorities also identified his French accomplice, but the woman named Works
In Paris for a consumer sagazine and said her passport was stolen in 1979,
Investigators believed that the first suspect, who identified himself as a
photographer for a non-existent French news agency, placed a bomb inside a
photographer's petal Suitcase and detonated it from outside the hot where
Pastora was holding the news conference,
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