Former contra wins review of US drug ties

By Bob Egelko

San Francisco, California, July 27— The former Northern California spokesman for the Nicaraguan contras, facing deportation for cocaine trafficking in the 1980s, will apparently get the chance to convince a federal judge that he was assured the drug deals had US government approval.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a judge should hear and evaluate Renato Pena’s claim that a federal prosecutor in San Francisco had told him after his arrest in 1984 that he was at no risk of deportation for having carried cocaine and cash to Los Angeles about a dozen times.

In court papers opposing Pena’s challenge to his current deportation order, the US attorney’s office said no such assurance was given. Pena’s case recalls the controversy over allegations of CIA- backed drug dealing by the contras, the US-supported guerrillas fighting Nicaragua’s leftist government in the 1980s. Accused in a San Jose Mercury News series of connections to the early crack cocaine trade in Southern California, the CIA hotly denied having anything to do with Los Angeles drug traffickers who claimed contra connections.

Pena said he had been told by Norwin Meneses, a major drug trafficker with ties to the contras, that CIA-connected contra commanders were aware of the drug operation in which Pena took part. The CIA has denied any relationship with Meneses.

The appeals court stopped well short of finding that the government condoned Pena’s activity as a drug courier. But the court said Pena’s claims about the government’s attitude were relevant to his attempt to overturn his 1985 drug conviction, the basis of the current attempt to deport him.

“Pena and his allies supporting the contras became involved in selling cocaine in order to circumvent the congressional ban on non-humanitarian aid to the contras,” the three-judge panel said. “Pena states that he was told that leading contra military commanders, with ties to the CIA, knew about the drug dealing. Pena believed that the sole purpose of these drug transactions was to help the contras, and he believed the United States government would not seek to prosecute.

“The circumstances surrounding Pena’s case, including his belief that his activity was supported by the US government and his alleged reliance on the assurances of the assistant US attorney regarding his immigration status, raise important questions about public confidence in the administration of justice.”

The court said a federal judge should hear testimony from Pena and others about what assurances he had been given before pleading guilty in 1985, and about whether his court-appointed attorney had acted incompetently by failing to tell him he risked deportation. The judge would then decide whether to set aside the guilty plea.

Pena’s suit, seeking to overturn the guilty plea, had been dismissed by US District Judge Fern Smith in 1997. The hearing ordered Wednesday would be held before another judge, because Smith now heads the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC.

“He’s a credible person,” said Pena’s current attorney, Stephen Shaiken. “He was good enough for the US government when he was spokesperson for the opposition and when he was an informant (against others in the drug ring). He was telling the truth then, and he’s telling it now.”

He said Pena, now a San Francisco city employee, was not speaking to reporters about the case.

The US attorney’s office, which represented immigration officials who want Pena deported, declined comment on the ruling.

Pena was a member of the security force of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, who was overthrown by the leftist Sandinistas in 1979. Pena came to the United States in 1980 and became the chief of public relations in Northern California for the FDN, the contras’ political arm.

He applied for political asylum in August 1984 but was arrested three months later on charges of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute it. Pena said he had been asked by Norwin Meneses’ nephew, Jairo Meneses, to travel to Los Angeles with money that would be used to buy cocaine and finance contras, whose US military aid had been cut off by Congress. He was paid about $6,000 for carrying money and drugs to Los Angeles between March and November 1984, the court said.

Pena said he had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a reduced sentence and been told by a federal prosecutor that he would be taken care of and had nothing to fear about his immigration status. He said he never would have pleaded guilty if he had known he could be deported to Nicaragua, then governed by the Sandinistas. He also said his court-appointed attorney had never spoken to him about the possibility of deportation.

After serving a year in a halfway house and testifying against another Meneses relative in the drug case, Pena was granted asylum in 1987, the court said. But the Immigration and Naturalization Service revoked his asylum in 1996 and moved to deport him to Nicaragua because of his drug conviction.

In court papers, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Yeargin said Pena’s asylum had been withdrawn because he had failed to disclose his conviction on his asylum application. Yeargin also said the original prosecutor in the case, Rodolfo Orjales, had discussed drug smuggling to Pena but made no promises to him.

Orjales, now a Justice Department employee in Washington, DC, was out of his office Wednesday and unavailable for comment.

Source: San Francisco Examiner

FBI, Minneapolis cops beat activists

Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 27— According to activist reports, police raided a Minneapolis house on July 26, beating activists who participated in the July 24 protests against genetic engineering. According to several independent accounts, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Minneapolis Police used excessive force in raiding the Sisters Camelot house. Sisters Camelot is a nonprofit free food distribution operation, and the house has been a known gathering place for protesters of last week’s International Society for Animal Genetics (ISAG) conference.

Robert Czernick (aka Tumbleweed) was beaten very badly in the raid. An activist gave this account of the raid:

“A large gang of law enforcement officers busted through the front door of the Sisters Camelot house screaming and telling people to ‘get on your faces.’ Apparently, nobody moved fast enough, as police threw people down and kicked them. Robert Czernick was referred to by the police by his nickname ‘Tumbleweed’ and was kicked repeatedly in his face until he stopped moving. When he didn’t answer the police, they shoved their knuckles into his throat and continued kicking him. When he requested first-aid he was laughed at. Another person was beaten in the basement by about ten police officers.

“After approximately 15 minutes of extremely high tension, they forced us to sit up, covered our heads with ripped banners (property of people in the house), and proceeded to tear the house apart. They said they had to cover our eyes so that we wouldn’t be able to see their undercover officers. Three or more undercover officers were present, wearing thick black ski masks and glasses.

“This was all under the pretense of a ‘drug raid,’ but the police gathered materials from the ISAG counter-conference and referred to us as the “ISAG bunch.” For the next two hours, they consistently brought up ISAG and animal rights issues. They also taunted us about the pet turtle that lives in the house. Among other things the police said: ‘You’re not so tough now, are ya?’; ‘This IS a police state’; ‘Stop moving or I’ll fucking kill you.’

“When asked what we were being charged with, they ignored us or refused to answer the questions. Instead they said, ‘You dont answer our questions, we won’t answer yours.’ They refused to show us a search warrant.

“We sat there for two hours, handcuffed and hooded, all the while being taunted and degraded by the police. I believe eleven people were arrested. Robert Czernik was finally taken out by a police EMT, and the rest of us were transported to the Hennepin County Jail. Two people are still being held on ‘probable cause for alleged narcotics.’”

Source: grainrage@visto.com