Nicaragua coverage August-December 1986

Aug 6 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-La Prensa
^Demonstration In Front Of La Prensa Office
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Police broke up an anti-government demonstration at the office of the opposition newspaper La Prensa on Wednesday, but did not intervene later as about 1,000 Sandinista supporters rallied and then defaced the building.
   Under the state of emergency imposed by the Sandinista government in 1982, both demonstrations were illegal. It was the first time an opposition demonstration had been held since the state emergency was imposed.
   The pro-government demonstrators, many of whom arrived in government trucks, painted black-and-red slogans and Sandinista emblems on the cream- colored walls of the newspaper building. A jeep full of Sandinista National Police drove past and waved the the demonstrators.
   The leftist government accuses La Prensa of siding with the U.S.-backed Contra rebels trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. The government indefinitely closed La Prensa on June 26, one day after the U.S. House approved $100 million in aid for the rebels.
   One demonstrator said he worked in the state-run soft drink bottling plant adjacent to the newspaper, and his bosses had allowed the workers to leave their posts to attend the demonstration.
   "This newspaper has shown too much support for imperialism, and we are not going to take it anymore," said the worker, who declined to give his name.
   "La Prensa has never spoken out in favor of the people, always against them," he said. "La Prensa supports the Contra barbarities against the people."
   Earlier in the day, Erick Ramirez, the president of the opposition Social Christian Party, led about 30 anti-government demonstrators at the newspaper building.
   "We have hunger and thirst for justice and liberty and are here to show our solidarity with the La Prensa newspaper," Ramirez said.
   La Prensa publisher Violeta Chamorro, who was visibly moved, told the group that, "I am grateful for your presence because it is a gesture of great valor and public spirit ... this demonstration is an example to all Nicaraguans who desire liberty in Nicaragua."
   Mrs. Chamorro's husband, former publisher Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, was killed in 1978 by gunmen hired by the Somoza regime, which was overthrown the following year by the Sandinistas.
   When about 25 police and state security officers showed up, the demonstrators went inside the newspaper building. Ramirez then came out and spoke with a police captain, who told him the demonstration was illegal.
   The police allowed the demonstrators to leave the scene and disperse without arresting them, and minutes later, the pro-government demonstarors began showing up.
   While the second demonstration was beginning, in another part of the capital, the new ambassador of the Vatican, Paolo Giglio, presented his credentials to President Daniel Ortega and said Nicaraguans should stop killing and begin embracing each other.
   "A Nicaraguan does not have to kill a Nicaraguan," he said. "He must embrace (his fellow) Nicaraguan.'
   Giglio assumes his post at a difficult time for the Roman Catholic Church in Nicaragua.
   Shortly after closing La Prensa, the government barred the church spokesman in Nicaragua, the Rev. Bismarck Carballo, from returning to the country and expelled Monsignor Pablo Antonio Vega, accusing them, like La Prensa, of supporting the "terrorist politics" of the Reagan administration.
   The Sandinistas said the prelates and La Prensa failed to speak out against Contra aggression and in fact supported it.
   During a visit to the United States last week, Ortega proposed that the Vatican and the government begin talks to settle their differences.
   Asked if he approved of such a dialogue, Giglio told reporters, "Without a dialogue, we can not overcome any difficulties."
   Giglio replaces Monsignor Andrea Cordero Lanza d'Montezemollo, who left Nicaragua in May and is serving as the Vatican ambassador to Uruguay.
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Aug 27 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Non-Aligned
^Nicaragua Hopes to Buck Reagan Administration by Leading  Non-Aligned Movement
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Nicaragua, whose dispute with the United States is expected to be a key issue at the non-aligned summit in Zimbabwe, hopes to become the movement's next leader despite alleged opposition from the Reagan administration.
   The role as leader of the 101-nation group could give the leftist Sandinista government increased international visibility and a forum for condemning U.S. aid to the Contra rebels fighting here for the last four years.
   Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco has said Nicaragua "has the best chances" to become the non-aligned movement's next leader, and as a result play host to the group's 1989 summit.
   Tinoco is now in Harare, Zimbabwe, site of the current summit, which opens Monday. The week-long encounter is held every three years.
   In comments published Tuesday by the official Sandinista newspaper Barricada, Tinoco said there is no opposition to Nicaragua for the presidency despite what he called pressure by U.S. "agents ... to orchestrate a campaign against the Sandinista revolution."
   Only two other nations, Indonesia and Peru, have been mentioned as possible successors to Zimbabwe.
   Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega will attend the summit in Zimbabwe.
   At a news conference Tuesday in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, his first stop on an extended foreign tour, he accused the United States of trying to block Nicaraguan efforts to lead the non-aligned movement.
   "Evidently, this candidacy does not count with the support for the United States, which is exerting pressure on Latin America to obstruct the plans of Nicaragua," he said, adding that Nicaragua wants to host the 1989 summit because it "considers important strengthening the principles, the global unity of the non-aligned countries and the defense of Latin American and Central American countries."
   A draft declaration being debated by officials in closed sessions in Harare expresses "outrage" over the $100 million in U.S. aid approved by both houses of Congress for the Contras. The draft also accuses the United States of an "immoral and illegal act and blatant aggression" against Nicaragua.
   Cuba's official news agency, Prensa Latina, reported Tuesday that a "high- powered U.S. delegation" had arrived in Harare and would attempt to block Nicaragua's bid for the non-aligned leadership.
   U.S. Embassy spoksman Chuck Bell in Harare called the report nonsense. He said the United States had sent one low-level State Department official and was expecting another from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
   If the Cuban report were true, Bell said, "We wouldn't send a junior official for that sort of job."
   In an interview with the pro-government Herald newspaper in Harare, Tinoco compared U.S. policy toward his country to South African treatment of its black-ruled neighbors.
   "The cases of the (African) front-line states and Nicaragua clearly show ... the aggressive interference by imperialist powers," he was quoted as saying.
   Nicaraguan officials remaining at home are taking a more conciliatory approach, however.
   In an interview with The New York Times, senior Foreign Ministry official Xavier Chamorro Mora was quoted as denying that Nicaraguan leadership of the non-aligned movement is aimed at obtaining a new forum for the dispute with the Reagan administration.
   "We want to make clear that we are not trying to turn the non-aligned movement into an instrument in our struggle against the United States government," Chamorro was quoted as saying.
   Nicaragua joined the non-aligned movement in 1979, shortly after the Sandinistas came to power by ousting the rightist, pro-American Somoza dynasty that ruled for 42 years.
   Among the group's past leaders are Cuba, India and Yugoslavia.
   Ortega would be the presiding officer of the movement for three years if Nicaragua is chosen.
   He said before departing from Managua on Sunday that Nicaragua would seek the movement's leadership "despite the pressures that the United States exerts to sabotage the possibility of a (summit) meeting in Nicaragua."
   Ortega's foreign tour will also take him to East Germany, India, China, North Korea, Burkina Faso and Ghana.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 27 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-On Patrol
^Sandinista Troops Search Jungles for Contras An AP Extra
^Laserphotos MGA2,3
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer=
^    EDITOR'S NOTE - AP reporter Andrew Selsky recently spent a week trekking through Nicaragua's rugged countryside with a Sandinista battalion specially trained to fight U.S.-supported Contra rebels.
   CHAMARRO, Nicaragua (AP) _ Sweating heavily after a day-long hike over muddy trails in tropical heat, 100 Sandinista counterinsurgency troops shed their rifles and grenade launchers and set up camp in a farmer's field.
   About 60 Contra guerrillas passed through the field just two hours earlier but managed once again to elude the Sandinista soldiers.
   "If the Contras wanted to fight us, we would have battles every day," said Lt. Carlos Flores Torres, the Sandinista company's 19-year-old commander. "But instead they avoid combat and hide from us."
   The evasion is deliberate. In a direct confrontation, the outnumbered, U.S.-backed Contras would risk encirclement and annihilation.
   Flores commands the 3rd Company of the Ramon Raudales Irregular Warfare Battalion, one of an unspecified number of counterinsurgency battalions that are the leftist Sandinista government's main weapon against the Contras.
   As Flores' men set up hammocks and makeshift tents, a Bruce Springsteen song blared from a soldier's radio. A full moon bathed the misted mountains in silver light, and a soldier on guard duty trapped a firefly in a plastic bag so he could illuminate his wristwatch without attracting the enemy's attention.
   The soldiers, many of whom interrupted their educations to serve two years in the army, dismissed Washington's charge that the Sandinista government is a Soviet military pawn and nest of terrorism.
   They said the Sandinistas are helped not just by the Soviets, but also by Canada, Sweden, Spain and other countries.
   Most of the soldiers were children when the Sandinistas ousted the right- wing, pro-American Somoza dynasty in 1979.
   "We want to build our own society; we need to raise the economic level of our people," said Lt. Noe Rivas. He touched a rough wall of the farmer's shack and said, "This is a poor house, and unfortunately it is a typical Nicaraguan house.
   "These people shouldn't be living like this. But 60 percent of our national budget is spent on the war," he said. "The war is holding us back from improving economically."
   The U.S. Congress recently approved $100 million in new aid for the Contras. The Sandinista soldiers said the money won't buy victory for the rebels but will prolong the conflict and lead to more casualties for both sides.
   The night in camp was tense. Once, a guard mistook a shadow for a Contra and fired a burst from his AK-47 automatic rifle.
   Two days later, the company moved cautiously through a narrow valley. Civilians reported that Contras had walked down the same trail earlier that morning, and Flores sent patrols down side paths to flush out any waiting Contras.
   The contact, when it came, was sudden and savage.
   A Sandinista patrol was walking up a knoll covered with palm trees, about 100 yards off the main path, when Contras hiding in the palms opened fire with dozens of automatic rifles.
   The Sandinistas answered with their own fusillade as they rushed up the knoll. Bullets ripped through the leaves around their heads and thudded into the earth.
   Flores, on the main path, pulled his men back to a clearing beside a house to set up a mortar and grenade launcher. Rocket-propelled grenades launched by the Contras crashed with a boom beside the path.
   A woman ran from the house and crouched behind a brick outhouse, covering her ears and face with her hands as 20 yards away the Sandinistas' Soviet-made AJS-17 grenade launcher and the mortar began pounding the Contra-held hilltop.
   A half hour later, the fighting was over. The Contras withdrew, leaving two dead. One Sandinista soldier stepped on a Contra-laid mine and was wounded. No Sandinistas were hurt in the Contras' opening blast.
   Flores' men camped on hilltops near the battle. Rifle and mortar fire punctuated the night as other Sandinsta troops spotted Contra patrols.
   At about 5 a.m. a voice called from the previous day's battle site: "Help me, get me out of here."
   A Sandinista patrol found an injured Contra who was abandoned by his comrades. Gnats bunched around a gaping wound on the young man's leg.
   Sandinista medics treated him and sent him to a hospital. For him, the war is over.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 28 21986
^AM-Nicaragua-Embassies
^Government Restricts Foreign Military Attaches' Movements
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The government has tightened controls on foreign military attaches, requiring them to give advance notice of their travel plans, a U.S. Embassy official said Thursday.
   A copy of the new rules was obtained by The Associated Press, and U.S. Embassy press attache Alberto Fernandez confirmed the embassy had received a copy of them.
   Fernandez said the United States might reciprocate by making similar requirements of officials of Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government stationed in Washington.
   The United States backs Contra rebels who are fighitng the Nicaraguan government.
   According to new rules, military attaches must inform the Defense Ministry in writing 48 hours in advance of any travel plans, including the purpose of the trip, the itinerary, the type and license plate number of the vehicle used and the names of people accompanying the attache.
   Only the United States, France and Venezuela have full-time military attaches in their embassies in Managua. Other countries have attaches accredited to the Nicaraguan government who live elsewhere in the region.
   These attaches must advise the Defense Ministry eight days in advance of their intention to visit Nicaragua, according to the new rules.
   The attaches, their office workers and family members must inform the Defense Ministry of their intention to leave Nicaragua before they can depart, the rules say.
   An official of the Nicaraguan Defense Ministry, Pedro Leonardo Vigil, refused to comment on the rules, saying they were meant only for the military attaches and not for public distribution.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 1 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Spy
^Accused Nicaraguan Publicly Admits He Spied For CIA
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Guillermo Quant Tai, jailed vice president of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce, said Monday he spied for the CIA "out of curiosity" and took no money for it.
   Quant Tai, whose parents came to Nicaragua from Taiwan, was arrested Aug. 19. He told a news conference at the Interior Ministry, where he is being held, that he had spied for the Central Intelligence Agency since 1983.
   He did not describe the information he provided to the U.S. espionage agency.
   In response to a question, he said the only money he received was reimbursement for air fare to Miami, where he went to take a lie-detector test. He gave no details.
   Speaking in a a barely audible whisper, he said he had been well treated since his arrest.
   "I am in their hands," he said of the Nicaraguan authorities. "I'm not afraid. I told them all I can and I feel calm."
   Asked why he worked for the CIA without pay, he replied, "Out of curiosity."
   He is the fourth Nicaraguan arrested this year by Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government on charges of spying for the CIA.
   The others were Jose Eduardo Trejos Silva and Reinaldo Aguado Montealegre, both officials of the Interior Ministry, and Trejos Silva's wife Rosalina Soza.
   All were convicted in a criminal court, and the Interior MInistry said Trejos Silva hanged himself in his jail cell.
   Quant Tai, 55, is a slight man with thinning hair who is both an engineer and businessman. He was dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and gray slacks.
   A Western diplomat who attended the news conference claimed the information the prisoner allegedly passed to the CIA was the kind of thing "you or I could get off the street." He spoke on condition of anonymity for reasons of protocol.
   The diplomat said a private businessman would have no access to classified military or government data, and added that Quant Tai allegedly transmitted non-classified information to the CIA by code.
   Interior Ministry officials displayed espionage paraphernalia they said security agents seized at Quant Tai's home and office. It included a hollowed- out bathroom scale in which he allegedly conce----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 17 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Church
^Government Says Ortega To Meet With Catholic Cardinal
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega will meet next week with Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the government announced in a brief statement.
   The Tuesday statement did not say what the officials will discuss, but the meeting will apparently be an attempt to ease tensions between the leftist Sandinista government and the Roman Catholic Church.
   The government statement said Rene Nunez, minister to the president, and Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes met with Bishops Bosco Vivas and Carlos Santi and Monsignor Paolo Giglio, the Vatican's representative here, to discuss the agenda for the upcoming meeting.
   There was no answer at the central offices of the Catholic Church.
   The government has expelled 16 Catholic priests, closed down the diocese's Catholic Radio station and repeatedly accused Obando y Bravo of being a counterrevolutionary.
   In June, the government expelled Monsignor Juan Antonio Vega, bishop of Juigalpa and former president of the Nicaraguan Bishops' Conference, and refused to allow the Rev. Bismarck Carballo, the church's spokesman here, to return to Nicaragua.
   The government moved against the prelates shortly after the U.S. Senate approved $100 million in military and humanitarian aid to the Contra rebels who are fighting against the Sandinista government.
   The government charged that Vega was "an accomplice of the aggressive politics of the United States against Nicaragua."
   Two days before his expulsion, Vega told reporters that the rebels have a right to fight for their freedom.
   Obando y Bravo has been a critic of the Sandinistas since they came to power in 1979. He argues the government is trying to install a Cuban-like totalitarian system and accuses it of human rights violations.
   Ortega, who is on a lengthy foreign tour, arrived Tuesday in East Germany from North Korea.  aled CIA instructions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 26 11986
^AM-Nicaragua-Press
^Supreme Court Upholds Censorship Of Opposition Newspaper
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The Supreme Court has upheld the Sandinista government's censorship of La Prensa, the nation's only opposition newspaper, an official newspaper reported Friday.
   The high court on Thursday rejected a claim by La Prensa that the government's actions were excessive, said the official Sandinista newspaper Barricada.
   La Prensa editor Carlos Ramirez said the newspaper filed the suit in December 1984.
   He said La Prensa's pages were submitted daily to the censorship office before publication. He said on some days the newspaper could not be printed because so much of the news had been deleted.
   "We asked for an urgent ruling and it took the court almost two years to give one," Ramirez said in a telephone interview.
   The court said the government had "full authority" to censor articles that threatened national security. La Prensa had claimed that some articles deleted by the censors had nothing to do with national security.
   The government ordered La Prensa closed June 26.
   Ramirez said the newspaper would not fight the shutdown order in court because the seven-judge panel has no authority to overturn the decision.
   The Supreme Court was appointed by the Sandinista government. Four of its seven judges are Sandinistas.
   The government ordered La Prensa closed after the U.S. House of Representatives approved $100 million in military and humanitarian aid to anti-Sandinista rebels. The aid was later approved by the Senate.
   The Sandinistas alleged La Prensa was a tool of the "aggressive policies" of the Reagan administration.
   Capt. Nelba Blandon, director of the government's press censorship office, has said the decision on whether the newspaper can resume publication "depends on the will of the United States to negotiate with Nicaragua."
   The Nicaraguan government wants the Reagan administration to stop all aid to the rebels and to resume bilateral negotiations to settle the tense Central American situation.
   Since the shutdown order, more than 100 employees have been laid off by the 62-year-old newspaper. Its offices remain open under owner Violeta Chamorro.
   The leftist Sandinistas came to power in July 1979 after overthrowing the rightist regime of the late Anastasio Somoza.
   With the closing of La Prensa, only two newspapers remain in Nicaragua - Barricada and the pro-government El Nuevo Diario.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 28 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Church
^Ortega Meets With Roman Catholic Church Leader
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicargua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega on Saturday met for the first time in nearly two years with Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo to discuss tensions between the Roman Catholic church and Sandinista government.
   Ortega said the meeting was "constructive and full of good will."
   Representatives of the government and church will meet again Tuesday to begin writing a formal agreement to "normalize and stabilize relations between church and state," he said.
   Catholic church leaders have been among the severest critics of the left- wing government, at times saying the Sandinistas were trying to impose Marxist totalitarianism.
   The government, in turn, has accused some church leaders of supporting the U.S.-backed rebels, a charge the clerygmen deny.
   Church leaders have repeatedly asked for a meeting with Ortega. The president and Obando y Bravo, the archbishop of Managua, last met in December 1984.
   Saturday's meeting took place at the Vatican Embassy in Managua and included Papal Nuncio Paolo Giglio.
   After the session, Ortega told reporters the meeting "shows the willingness to talk on the part of the government and on the part of the church."
   Obando y Bravo said he had discussed with Ortega the government shutdown of a Catholic radio station earlier this year and the expulsions of two Nicaraguan priests.
   "We brought these problems up," he said. "But first we must make a practical plan (with the government), and while we make a practical plan we will deal with these problems in particular and see if there really is good will."
   Church-government relations were severely strained when the government on July 3 expelled Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, the second ranking prelate in Nicaragua. It accused him of making pro-rebel statements.
   Church spokesman Monsignor Bismarck Carballo had been barred on June 28 from re-entering Nicaragua after a trip abroad.
   The radio station was closed Jan. 2 when it failed to transmit a speech by Ortega.
   Ortega's government stepped up its crackdown on the opposition in June after the U.S. Congress approved $100 million in aid to the rebels, known as Contras.
   "One of our wishes is for the return of Monsignor Vega and Monsignor Bismarck Carballo," Obando y Bravo said. "I believe these are the wishes of a great part of the population."
   Ortega said, "We took advantage of this opportunity to explain to the bishops, Cardinal Obando and to the nuncio, the delicate situation this nation is living through, the threats that the politics of the United States present to Nicaragua, the danger of invasion that exists in our country from the United States."
   He declined to comment on the possibility of the return of Vega and Carballo, but said:
   "We are contemplating some concrete measures and some concrete actions on the part of the government and the church to strengthen the climate (for negotiations)."
   The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979 after defeating the conservative government of President Anastasio Somoza in a civil war.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 29 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Trade
^Trade Deficit Adds To Nicaragua's Economic Problems
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
¶   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The country's trade deficit is expected to reach $608 million this year, due largely to the U.S. embargo and the Sandinista government's war against U.S.-backed rebels, a senior government official said Monday.
¶   Alejandro Martinez Cuenca, minister of foreign trade, said the Central American country expects to earn $232 million from exports, chiefly coffee, cotton and bananas, but will import $840 million worth of goods.
¶   This year's trade picture shows a "worrisome deterioration" from the 1985 trade balance, he said. Nicaragua's exports last year totaled $298 million, while imports reached $892 million for a deficit of $594 million.
¶   "Some people will try to blame the Sandinistas for the crisis, but the war and the international financial crisis are to blame," Martinez told reporters at a luncheon.
¶   The trade embargo imposed last year by President Reagan on the leftist Sandinista government has cost Nicaragua $108.4 million, he said. That amount represents what Nicaragua has had to pay for goods from more distant and expensive markets and the losses from having to find alternative markets for goods formerly shipped to the United States, he said.
¶   "There is no product we have that we are not selling because of a lack of a market, although not all of the markets are favorable," Martinez said.
¶   A poor coffee harvest and a drop in world cotton prices also have contributed to the 1986 deficit, Martinez said. Coffee is the country's largest export earner and cotton is second.
¶   Martinez said Nicaragua has suffered $1.5 billion in damage to bridges, electrical installations, farm cooperatives and other targets since 1982, when Contra rebels began their fight to oust the leftist government.
¶   Sandinista officials have said 60 percent of the national budget is spent on the war, although the amount of the budget itself has never been made public.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 30 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Church
^Government, Church Representatives Meet to Ease Tensions
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the leftist Sandinista government met Tuesday to begin drafting a formal agreement to ease tensions between the church and the state.
   There was no immediate report of their discussions. Reporters were barred from the Presidential House where the meeting was held.
   President Daniel Ortega and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo met Saturday for the first time in nearly two years to try to normalize relations between the church and the government, and agreed to have their representatives start work on a formal agreement.
   Connie Urtecho, an official of the government press office, identified the church's representatives at the meeting as Paolo Giglio, the Vatican's ambassador to Nicaragua; Monsignor Bosco Vivas, the auxiliary archbishop of Nicaragua, and Bishop Carlos Santi of the northern city of Matagalpa.
   Representing the government were presidential aide Rene Nunez and Justice Minister Rodrigo Rezes.
   Catholic leaders have been among the harshest critics of the government, saying at times the Sandinistas were trying to impose Marxist totalitarianism.
   The government has accused some church leaders of supporting U.S.-backed rebels who are trying to topple the Sandinistas, a charge the clergymen deny.
   The church's Catholic Radio was shut down by the government on Jan. 2 after the station failed to transmit a speech by Ortega.
   Church spokesman Monsignor Bismarck Carballo on June 28 was barred from re- entering Nicaragua after a trip abroad.
   And on July 3, the government expelled Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, the second-ranking prelate in Nicaragua, accusing him of making pro-rebel statements.
   The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979 after toppling the rightist regime of the late Anastasio Somoza.
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Oct 7 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Plane
^Nicaragua Claims It Captured U.S. Military Adviser
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The leftist government claimed it captured a U.S. military adviser and killed three Americans when it shot down a rebel plane. But Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today the plane did not belong to the U.S. government.
   Shultz, speaking to a Washington news conference, said the plane "wasn't an American cargo plane," but was hired by "private people," including Americans.
   A CIA spokeswoman said the agency was not involved.
   The Sandinista government said it shot down the plane Sunday in the jungle about 35 miles north of Costa Rica and 91 miles southeast of Managua. It said the plane was loaded with rifles and ammunition.
   The Defense Ministry said the survivor told his captors he was a U.S. military advisor based in El Salvador and his dead companions were Americans.
   "We now have Americans dying in Mr. Reagan's dirty war being waged against Nicaragua," Alejandro Bendana, Foreign Ministry secretary-general, said on ABC's "Nightline" program. "This brings us closer to a direct Nicaragua- United States confrontation."
   He later claimed on ABC's "Good Morning America" that the plane was on "a CIA operation with CIA operatives."
   Nicaragua identified the man as Eugen Hafenfuf, 35, but said it was not sure how the name was spelled. In Wisconsin, people who identified themselves as relatives of the survivor said the man was Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis.
   In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jay Farrar said: "There is no one by that name (the one provided by Nicaragua) in the active U.S. military today. We are still checking to see if an individual with the name given served in the U.S. military in the past, but so far the results are negative.
   "And we also have no record of missing U.S. military personnel or aircraft in Central America," Farrar said.
   Also in Washington, CIA spokeswoman Kathy Pherson said, "The guy doesn't work for us and CIA is not involved. ... There are congressional restrictions on assistance to the Contras and we do not break those restrictions."
   Several rebel groups known as Contras have been fighting to overthrow the leftist Nicaraguan government for 4 1/2  years. The United States supports the rebels and a bill authorizing $100 million in aid is pending in Congress.
   However, Congress has barred using U.S. military personnel in support for the Contras, including the presence of U.S. advisers on Nicaraguan soil.
   A woman who answered a telephone listed in the name of Eugene Hasenfus in Marinette and who identified herself as his wife, Sally, told The Associated Press her husband was the surviving crew member. She would not say whether he was connected with the military.
   "I only know what I see on the TV, too, and I really don't know any more," she said.
   William Hasenfus, of Oshkosh, Wis., who said he was the survivor's brother, said Eugene was a former Marine who worked for an air freight company in Florida. He said he didn't know the name of the company.
   The United States stations 55 military advisers in El Salvador to train its forces in putting down leftist rebels, but these advisers are banned from going into combat there. El Salvador is north of Nicaragua but does not share a border with it.
   A U.S. Embassy spokesman in San Salvador, capital of El Salvador, told The Associated Press that the plane's surviving crew member "is not an adviser, not an employee of the embassy and has no relation with us."
   The spokesman, Pendelton Agnew, said there was no mention of the man in embassy records.
   The Nicaraguan Defense Ministry said the plane, believed to have been a C- 123 tactical transport, was shot down with a Soviet-made surface-to-air missile at 12:45 p.m. Sunday.
   In a statement, the ministry said the plane carried at least 50,000 rounds of ammunition for AK-47 automatic rifles, dozens of rifles, an unspecified number of rocket-propelled grenades and other equipment for the Contras.
   Presidential press secretary Manuel Espinoza said in a phone interview today that poor visibility prevented helicopters from reaching the crash site. He said the survivor would be brought to Managua as soon as possible.
   No American serviceman has been reported captured or killed in combat in Nicaragua since 1979, when the leftist Sandinistas ousted the U.S.-backed dictatorship of President Anastasio Somoza.
   However, a U.S. army pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Jeffrey C. Schwab of Joliet, Ill., was killed Jan. 11, 1984, by Sandinista fire after his helicopter crossed into Nicaraguan airspace and was shot down just inside Honduras.
   Two other Americans, members of a private paramilitary group called Civilian-Military Assistance, died when their CIA-supplied helicopter was shot down Sept. 1, 1984, during a Contra air and ground attack on a Sandinista military training school.
   A spokesman for the largest Contra fighting force, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, said no plane belonging to his group was shot down Sunday. The spokesman talked to the AP in Tegucigalpa.
   Sandinista troops previously have shot down two full-sized Contra planes, as well as four light planes and seven helicopters, said Capt. Rosa Pasos, a spokeswoman for the Nicaraguan Defense Ministry.
   The Contras own a small fleet of battered, propeller-driven airplanes, which they use to drop supplies by parachute to troops.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 7 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Plane
^American Says He's An Aviation Specialist
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An American who survived when Sandinista soldiers shot down a cargo plane said Tuesday he is an aviation specialist who boarded the C-123 in El Salvador, and was captured in the jungle a day after the plane crashed.
   Nicaraguan officials have claimed Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., is an American military adviser serving in El Salvador and the transport shot down Sunday in southern Nicaragua was carrying weapons and ammunition to U.S.-backed Contra rebels fighting the leftist Sandinistas.
   Sandinista army Lt. Col. Roberto Calderon said in Managua that Hasenfus and two Americans who died on the plane carried identification associating them with the U.S. military advisory group in El Salvador.
   However, officials in Washington denied any connection between Hasenfus and the U.S. government. A Contra official in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, also denied that it had anything to do with the plane or the crew.
   Calderon also said Sandinista officials were considering whether to put Hasenfus on trial and whether to return the American victims' bodies to their families.
   Hasenfus, unshaven and wearing muddied denim clothing, was led onto a stage at the Government Press Center in Managua after being flown by helicopter Tuesday from the crash site.
   "My name is Gene Hasenfus. I come from Marinette, Wis. I was captured yesterday in southern Nicarauga. Thank you," he said in a shaky voice. He was led away after 20 seconds, and reporters could not question him.
   Hasenfus also was allowed to speak to local journalists briefly in San Carlos, a port on Lake Nicaragua near the crash site. He said the plane began its journey in Miami, picked him up in El Salvador, then took a Nicaraguan aboard in Honduras and entered Nicaraguan air space from Costa Rica at a site known as La Noca on the San Juan River.
   According to Hasenfus, the Nicaraguan was one of three men killed in the crash.
   Nicaraguan army officers who accompanied Hasenfus said the other two men killed were Americans they identified as Wallace Blaine Sawger Jr. and Bill Cooper. Their hometowns were not available.
   A translator told reporters that although one of the victims' names was spelled Sawger on an identification card, Sandinista officials believe the name was Sawyer.
   In Washington, State Department spokesman Pete Martinez said he had no information about either man.
   Nicaragua had said initially that all three dead men were Americans, but Calderon later said one was of "Latin origin."
   The bodies were said to be in bad condition and still at the crash site in a remote jungle area north of the San Juan River, which helicopters had difficulty in reaching because of poor weather.
   Calderon, chief of the military district where the plane was shot down, quoted Hasenfus as saying Sunday's flight had been his fourth Contra supply flight since July.
   Calderon said Hasenfus' job in the supply flight was to kick bundles of supplies out of the plane. The C-123 is an older-model aircraft that was used widely during the Vietnam War.
   Calderon said Hasenfus carried a card issued by the Salvadoran air force on July 28, 1986, authorizing him to enter restricted areas of Ilopango Air Force Base in southern El Salvador.
   Calderon claimed documents found in the downed transport plane and on the victims' bodies identified Cooper and Sawger, or Sawyer, as members of the U.S. military advisory group in El Salvador.
   He said Cooper was the plane's pilot, and the other dead American the co- pilot.
   Another captured document had been issued to Cooper by a company called Southern Air Transport, Calderon said. That company, which reportedly has flown supplies to the Contras, said Tuesday it knew nothing about Hasenfus or the flight.
   Sandinista officials said the plane was shot down with a Soviet-made surface-to-air missile at a spot 35 miles north of Costa Rica and 91 miles southeast of Managua.
   The Defense Ministry said the downed plane carried 50,000 rounds of ammunition for Soviet-made AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, dozens of automatic rifles, jungle boots and other military supplies.
   Secretary of State George P. Shultz said in Washington that the plane did not belong to the U.S. government, and a CIA spokeswoman denied Sandinista claims that the survivor was an employee of the intelligence agency.
   Shultz told reporters the aircraft "wasn't an American cargo plane" but was hired by "private people," including Americans. He did not name the people.
   Carlos Icaza, one of seven directors of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force guerrilla group, told The Associated Press in Tegucigalpa that "our planes are intact, as well as our pilots." He said the Contra group had nothing to do with the matter.
   The group has a small fleet of propeller-driven aircraft used to drop supplies to its men in Nicaragua.
   In Wisconsin, Hasenfus' wife Sally said of her husband in a telephone interview earlier: "I don't know where he is and what he's doing. "I only know what I see on the TV, too, and I really don't know any more."
   A brother, William Hasenfus, 47, of Oshkosh, said Eugene Hasenfus began working last summer for an air freight company in Florida whose name and location he did not know. He said Eugene was an a former Marine and the brothers once ran a parachuting school.
   Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Angela Saballos said the government was preparing a protest note to Washington about what she called "escalated aggression by the United States against Nicaragua."
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez said the embassy delivered a note to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday morning requesting permission to meet with Hasenfus.
   Lt. Col. Arnie Williams, a Pentagon spokesman, said a man by the name of Eugene Hasenfus had served in the Marines.
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Pendleton Agnew in San Salvador, capital of El Salvador, said the survivor "is not an adviser, not an employee of the embassy and has no relation with us."
   Several groups of rebels called Contras have fought the Sandinistas for 4 1/2  years. The United States supports them and a bill authorizing $100 million in aid is pending in Congress.
   Congress has barred using U.S. military personnel in support of the Contras, including U.S. advisers on Nicaraguan soil.
   No American servicemen have been reported captured or killed in combat in Nicaragua since the leftist Sandinistas ousted the U.S.-backed regime of President Anastasio Somoza in July 1979.
   A U.S. Army pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Jeffry C. Schwab of Joliet, Ill., was killed Jan. 11, 1984, by Sandinista fire when his helicopter crossed into Nicaraguan airspace and was shot down just inside Honduras.
   Two Americans members of a private paramilitary group, Civilian Military Assistance, died when their CIA-supplied helicopter was shot down Sept. 1, 1984, during a rebel attack on a Sandinista military training school near the Honduran border.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 8 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Plane
^Official Says Captured American May Be Tried
^With LaserPhoto MGA1
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A military official said an American whose cargo plane was shot down over Nicaragua may be put on trial, and President Reagan today reiterated denials the aircraft was linked to the U.S. government.
   The official newspaper Barricada today showed a full-page photograph of 45- year-old Eugene Hasenfus of Marinette, Wis., being led through the jungle by a rope tied around his hands. "The defeat of Rambo Hasenfus," read the headline.
   The Sandinista government claims Hasenfus' cargo plane was laden with supplies bound for Contra rebels.
   Barricada said Hasenfus walked a mile through the jungle after his C-123 was shot down Sunday, killing two other Americans and a fourth crew member. It said he took shelter at an abandoned shack, where he fashioned a hammock out of his parachute.
   When found by a Sandinista army patrol and ordered to surrender, he dropped two pistols and a jungle knife, the newspaper said.
   Lt. Col. Roberto Calderon, chief of the southern military district where the plane was shot down, said the government was considering whether to put Hasenfus on trial. It did not specify what charges might be filed.
   In Washington, President Reagan said, "We've been aware that there are private groups and private citizens that have been trying to help the Contras to that extent but we did not know the exact particulars of what they're doing," he said.
   "We're in a free country where private citizens have a great many freedoms," he said.
   Nicaragua has claimed the plane was part of a CIA operation to supply the Contras. Barricada said in an editorial today that faced with its "failure to wipe out the (Sandinista) revolution through the (Contras), the United States is getting more directly involved with its own forces of aggression."
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez said late Tuesday it had asked Nicaragua to allow an embassy representative to visit Hasenfus.
   "We have done all we can do at the moment," Fernandez said. "We are still waiting for a response."
   Hasenfus was shown briefly to reporters Tuesday at a news conference. Defense Ministry spokeswoman Capt. Rosa Pasos today said Hasenfus was being questioned, but refused to say where the American was being held.
   The ministry said Tuesday that one of the dead crew members was of "Latin origin," and that papers on the other two or in the plane identified them as U.S. military advisers in El Salvador.
   The United States has 55 military advisers in El Salvador, where it supports the government in a guerrilla war with leftist rebels.
   The United States also supports the Contras, who have been fighting Nicaragua's Marxist government for 4 1/2  years. Congress recently approved $100 million in aid to the Contras, but has ruled out using U.S. military personnel to help them.
   Calderon identified the two killed Americans as pilot William J. Cooper and co-pilot Wallace Blaine Sawger. A translator said the name Sawger was taken from a document and was assumed to be a misspelling of Sawyer.
   In Washington, State Department spokesman Pete Martinez said he had no information about the two.
   In Magnolia, Ark., Wallace Blaine Sawyer Sr. said he believed the dead co- pilot was his son. He said his son was an Air Force veteran and worked as a contract pilot "mostly hauling freight."
   He said he did not recall him ever discussing Nicaragua, adding, "He's not a military adviser, that's for sure."
   Nicaraguan troops were working Tuesday night to recover the bodies from the wreckage, in dense jungle about 91 miles southeast of Managua and 30 miles north of Costa Rica.
   Calderon said Hasenfus carried an identification card issued July 28 by the Salvadoran air force giving him access to restricted areas of the Ilopango air base in southern El Salvador. Hasenfus told reporters Tuesday he had boarded the C-123 at the base.
   Calderon said the Sandinistas also found an identification card issued to Cooper by a company called Southern Air Transport. That company, which reportedly has flown supplies to the Contras, said it knew nothing about Hasenfus or the flight.
   Sawyer's father said his son worked for Southern Air Transport years ago.
   The plane carried 60 AK-model Soviet-made rifles, 100,000 rounds of ammunition, dozens of rocket-propelled grenades and other military equipment, Calderon said.
   Hasenfus was show to reporters at a news conference in Managua, but they were not allowed to question him. He was brought on stage for about 20 seconds, wearing mud-spattered denim clothes.
   "My name is Gene Hasenfus. I come from Marinette, Wis. I was captured yesterday in southern Nicaragua. Thank you," he said in a shaky voice.
   Earlier, speaking to local journalists in San Carlos near the crash site, Hasenfus said the plane began its journey in Miami, picked him up in El Salvador, then took a Nicaraguan aboard in Honduras and entered Nicaraguan air space from Costa Rica.
   In Washington, a U.S. intelligence source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the munitions on the plane were intended for Contras of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, operating in south-central Nicaragua.
   But Carlos Icaza, an FDN leader, told The Associated Press in Tegucigalpa that his group had nothing to do with it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 9 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Plane
^American Captured in Nicaragua to Stand Trial
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An American captured when Sandinista troops shot down his cargo plane said today the aircraft was carrying weapons to the Contra rebels and that he worked with CIA employees.
   Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., said on a nationally broadcast news conference that he has made 10 trips to deliver weapons to the rebels. He said four of the flights were from Aguacate air base in Honduras and six were from Ilopango air base in El Salvador.
   "We would be flying into Honduras to an air base called Aguacate and we would be loading up on small arms and ammunition and this would be flown to Nicaragua," he said at a nationally broadcast news conference. "These we would drop to the Contras."
   He said 24 to 26 "company people" assisted the program in El Salvador, including flight crews, maintenance crews and "two Cuban nationalized Americans that worked for the CIA."
   Hasenfus identified the nationalized Cuban-Americans as Max Gomez and Ramon Medina.
   President Reagan and other U.S. officials deny that the plane or its crew were connected with the American government. The three other crew members, including two Americans and a third man believed to be an American, were killed when the plane was shot down Sunday in the jungle of southern Nicaragua.
   Sandinista officials have said the plane's cargo indicates it was part of a CIA operation to supply Contras, U.S.-backed rebels fighting to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.
   Nicaragua has sent the United States a note of protest and called on the Reagan administration "to abandon its politics of force, threats and intervention in Central American and accept the path of dialogue."
   A U.S. official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the base at Ilopango has been used for years for Contra supply flights.
   Hasenfus said the CIA employees' jobs were "to oversee housing for the crews, transportation projects, refueling and some flight plans."
   He said he was told he would be paid $3,000 per month plus housing, transportation and expenses for working with the air crews.
   "I was told we would be flying DHC Caribous and C-123 K-models," he said.
   At the news conference, the Sandinista army's chief of intelligence, Capt. Ricardo Wheelock, said, "Mr. Hasenfus is being treated under the best possible conditions ... for a prisoner of war."
   U.S. Consul-General Donald Tyson met with Nicaraguan officials at the Foreign Ministry for two hours today.
   Asked when the Sandinistas would allow embassy officials to meet with Hasenfus, Tyson replied: "I really don't have anything to say."
   Hasenfus' wife, Sally, arrived at the ministry with the U.S. Embassy officials but did not leave with them.
   On Wednesday, Nicaraguan officials said Hasenfus wuld be put on trial and could face up to 30 years in prison. The government has not announced charges against Hasenfus.
   Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Angela Saballos said the bodies of the three dead crew members would be returned to their families.
   Nicaraguan officials identified the dead as pilot William J. Cooper and co- pilot Wallace Blaine Sawyer Jr., both U.S. citizens, and a man who has not been identified but is believed to be American.
   The New York Times News Service and Dallas Morning News reported today that a logbook reportedly captured on the plane and signed by Sawyer lists 34 crew members who served on various flights for the rebels, known as Contras, during the past two years. All the names appeared to be non-Latin, the reports said.
   In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, largest of the Contra groups, said the men on the plane had worked with them since 1984.
   The Sandinista party newspaper Barricada reported the downed plane's registration number as N4410F. According to the Orlando, Fla., office of the Federal Aviation Administration, the aircraft registered under that number belonged to Doan Helicopter, Inc. of Daytona Beach, Fla.
   But the Daytona Beach News-Journal quoted an unidentified source as saying the company's owner, Harry Doan, sold the plane six months ago to a California company that in turn leased it to Southern Air Transport of Miami.
   Southern Air formerly was owned by the CIA.
   Manuel Espinoza, spokesman for President Daniel Ortega, said Hasenfus will be allowed to see U.S. Embassy officials but refused to say when. He called Hasenfus a "delinquent who will be tried by Nicaraguan courts."
   Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States Carlos Tunnerman, speaking Wednesday in Rochester, N.Y., said Hasenfus could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison, but would not say what charges he will face.
   Hasenfus, a former Marine who is believed to be the first American captured in the 4 1/2 -year-old guerrilla war, told reporters Tuesday in a brief appearance at a news conference that the plane had taken off from El Salvador.
   Sawyer, 45, graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy and served from 1968 to 1974, when he was honorably discharged as a captain.
   Joni and Mitzi Cooper told television station KTNV in Reno, Nev., that Cooper was their father. Joni Cooper said her 62-year-old father was a Navy pilot in World War II and flew for the CIA during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
   Lt. Col. Roberto Calderon, chief of Nicargua's southern military district, said the plane carried 60 Soviet-made automatic rifles, 100,000 rounds of ammunition, dozens of rocket-propelled grenades and other military equipment. Documents found at the crash site showed the Americans were "members of the United States military advisory group in El Salvador."
   Congress recently gave preliminary approval to $100 million in aid to the Contras, who the CIA armed and trained from 1981 to 1984.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 10 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Plane
^American Says CIA Coordinated Rebel Supply Flights; Remains Sent Home
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The remains of two Americans killed when the Sandinistas shot down their cargo plane were sent home today. The sole surviving crewman, American Eugene Hasenfus, said he was on a CIA-coordinated supply mission to the Contras.
   The gray wood coffins containing the remains of the plane's pilot, William J. Cooper, and co-pilot, Wallace Blaine Sawyer Jr., were loaded onto a Taca airlines flight at Augusto Cesar Sandino International Airport.
   The government's Voice of Nicaragua radio said, "The two American advisers arrived as pilots and are leaving as cargo."
   The flight was bound for Houston by way of San Salvador, but it was not immediately clear if the coffins would be moved to another flight in El Salvador.
   A third crew member who was killed has not been identified, but is believed to be an American.
   The U.S. Embassy on Thursday issued a statement saying it "abhors the ghoulish behavior which characterized the Sandinista government's return of the remains of the two Americans."
   A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Nicaraguan government had agreed to bring the coffins through the embassy gates by truck. Instead, they were left on the ground outside the gates. Nicaraguan employees of the embassy carried them inside five minutes later.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., who bailed out of the plane when it was shot down Sunday, told a news conference Thursday that he had taken part in 10 arms drops to the Contras.
   He said four left from Aguacate air base in Honduras and six from Ilopango air base in El Salvador.
   Both Honduras and El Salvador are staunch allies of the United States, which backs the Contras in their 4 1/2 -year-old fight to overthrow the leftist Nicaraguan goverment.
   President Reagan, U.S. military and CIA officials have insisted the U.S. government had no connection with the supply flight.
   Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams told The Associated Press in Washington that Hasenfus was not telling the truth because of threats and intimidation by Nicaraguan authorities.
   Theresa Hasenfus, the wife of Hasenfus' father, said Thursday in Neenah, Wis., that the captive's statements at the news conference sounded "fishy," adding, "To our knowlege he wasn't connected with the CIA at all."
   Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, who has acknowledged his Council for World Freedom sends non-lethal supplies to the Contras, said if his organization had been involved in Hasenfus' supply flight, "they would have done a better job than was done in this one."
   Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," Singlaub today reiterated that Hasenfus "is not working for me. I've never heard of him until this incident. And actually I'm not involved in flying arms and ammunition into the Contras."
   Singlaub said his group sends its non-lethal supplies to New Orleans, where the Contras or other Nicaraguan opposition groups pick them up.
   At a news conference Thursday, the U.S. Embassy protested its lack of consular access to Hasenfus.
   Manuel Espinoza, spokesman for President Daniel Ortega, said Wednesday that Hasenfus would be allowed consular visits, but did not say when.
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez said Hasenfus was believed held in El Chipote prison near downtown Managua. Nicaraguan officials have refused to say where he is.
   They have not filed charges against Hasenfus, but say he will be put on trial and faces up to 30 years in prison.
   Hasenfus appeared at his news conference dressed in jeans and a jacket over a black T-shirt. He looked tired but shaven and clean.
   He said he was employed by Corporate Air Services, which has the same Miami address as a company formerly owned by the CIA, Southern Air Transport. Hasenfus said Corporate Air had 24 to 26 people in El Salvador.
   "We would be flying into Honduras to an air base called Aguacate and we would be loading up on small arms and ammunition and this would be flown to Nicaragua," he said. "These we would drop to the Contras."
   He said the company personnel "consisted of flight crews, maintenance crews, drivers and there were two Cuban nationalized Americans that worked for the CIA that did most of the coordinating of these flights and overseeing all of our housing projects, transportation projects, also refueling and some flight plans."
   He identified the Cuban-Americans as Max Gomez and Ramon Medina.
   The CIA armed and trained the Contras from 1981 to 1984, but was barred by Congress from continuing its aid. Congress recently gave preliminary approval to $100 million in aid to the Contras.
   Hasenfus, a former Marine, said he worked during the late 1960s and early 1970s for Air America, an airline operated by the CIA in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He said Cooper was a former Air America pilot.
   Sawyer was a U.S. Air Force veteran.
   In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the Nicarguan Democratic Force, the largest of the Contra groups, said the men on the plane had worked with them since 1984.
   A source in Ortega's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hasenfus' wife, Sally, met briefly with her husband Thursday. She arrived in Managua on Wednesday.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 10 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Plane
^Nicaragua Sends Bodies Of American Pilots Home
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The bodies of two Americans killed in a rebel supply plane shot down by Sandinista soldiers were sent home Friday. Government radio said the men "arrived as pilots and are leaving as cargo."
   Eugene Hasenfus, the American who survived, remained in prison but was allowed to see the U.S. consul Friday for the first time. The CIA has denied his statement that it was involved in a series of supply runs to the rebels, including the one the C-123 was making when it was hit by a missile Sunday and crashed in the jungles of southern Nicaragua.
   Hasenfus was taken from a military jeep, armed handcuffed behind his back, to a 20-minute meeting with U.S. Consul Donald Tyson at a building of the State Security's General Directorate. Three soldiers escorted him.
   Government spokesman Manuel Espinoza told reporters outside the building that Hasenfus complained to Tyson that he had been kept indoors and was unable to see sunlight, but that he was being treated well.
   The two plain gray coffins, of the type used to bury Sandinista soldiers, were sent by U.S. Embassy officials on a TACA Airlines flight bound for Houston via San Salvador, but there were reports they would be transferred in the Salvadoran capital.
   In Washington, the State Department said the bodies would be taken to Miami. Two gray coffins arrived there on a TACA flight at 2:50 p.m. EDT and were taken away in a truck.
   The bodies of the cargo plane's pilot, William J. Cooper, and co-pilot Wallace Blaine Sawyer Jr. were delivered to the embassy Thursday. A third victim has not been identified and his body has not been released.
   An American official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Nicaraguan government agreed to bring the two Americans' bodies through the embassy gates by truck. The coffins were left on the ground outside instead, and Nicaraguan employees of the embassy carried them inside five minutes later.
   The embassy issued a statement saying it "abhors the ghoulish behavior which characterized the Sandinista government's return of the remains of the two Americans."
   State Department spokesman Pete Martinez said in Washington: "We regret the fact the government of Nicaragua chose a circus-like prpopaganda maneuver instead of the respect for the dead one would expect from a civilized nation."
   The U.S. official in Managua said the bodies were "totally incincerated," nothing more than "skulls and ashes." He said the embassy was told cremation was necessary because of the advanced state of decomposition.
   Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Angela Saballos said she had no information on the reported cremations.
   "The fundamental point is that (the United States) should not continue sending people to die here, and the best way to do that is to stop the war against Nicaragua," she said. "They send them here to be blown to pieces and then they worry about the remains."
   A broadcast on the official Voice of Nicaragua radio said: "The two Americans arrived as pilots and are leaving as cargo. They came to destroy our people and they were annihilated. They arrived clandestinely and they leave legally."
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., bailed out of the plane and Nicaraguan soldiers captured him Monday. He told a news conference Thursday he participated in 10 arms drops to the U.S.-backed rebels, known as Contras, who have been fighting the leftist Sandinistas for 4 1/2 years.
   Espinoza, who attended the meeting betweem Hasenfus and Tyson, said the prisoner asked Tyson to bring him fresh clothing, toothpaste and shaving gear.
   Tyson refused to answer reporters' questions when he left the meeting.
   At Thursday's news conference, Hasenfus said four flights left from the Aguacate air base in Honduras and six from Ilopango air base in El Salvador. Honduras and El Salvador are U.S. allies.
   Americans, some reportedly with CIA ties, flew hundreds of flights over the past two years to assist rebels, including combat support operations, according to documents the Nicaraguan government says it found on the plane.
   The documents - flight records, personal papers and crew logs - depict a major secret supply operation backing the Contras during the two years of a congressional ban on U.S. government military aid.
   The Associated Press was allowed to review the documents Thursday night, but copies were not provided.
   President Reagan, the U.S. military and CIA officials say the U.S. government had no connection with the C-123 that was shot down.
   Elliot Abrams, assistant secretary of state, told The Associated Press in Washington that Hasenfus was lying because of threats and intimidation by Nicaraguan authorities.
   Capt. Nelba Blandon, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, said his statements were not made as part of a deal for leniency. "We cannot negotiate with mercenaries. Those are not the politics of the revolution," she said.
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez said Hasenfus was believed held in El Chipote prison near downtown Managua. Nicaraguan officials refuse to reveal where he is and have not filed charges, but say he will be put on trial and faces up to 30 years in prison.
   Hasenfus said he was employed by Corporate Air Services, which has the same Miami address as a company formerly owned by the CIA, Southern Air Transport. Hasenfus said Corporate Air had 24 to 26 people in El Salvador.
   He said personnel "consisted of flight crews, maintenance crews, drivers and there were two Cuban nationalized Americans that worked for the CIA that did most of the coordinating of these flights and overseeing all of our housing projects, transportation projects, also refueling and some flight plans."
   He identified the Cuban-Americans as Max Gomez and Ramon Medina.
   The CIA armed and trained the Contras from 1981-1984, but Congress barred it from continuing the aid. Congress gave preliminary approval recently to $100 million in aid to the Contras.
   The Nicaraguan Democratic Force, largest of the rebel groups, said in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, that the men on the plane had worked with them since 1984.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 11 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Plane
^Captured American Has First Meeting with U.S. Consul
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An American captured when Nicaraguan troops shot down a rebel supply plane was taken handcuffed to his first meeting with the U.S. consul, whom he asked for toothpaste and shaving gear, a government spokesman said.
   The bodies of two Americans who died in the plane's crash Sunday were flown back to the United States on Friday. Nicaraguan government radio said the two "arrived as pilots and are leaving as cargo."
   Eugene Hasenfus told U.S. consul Donald Tyson during their first meeting Friday that he was being treated well, but complained of the lack of sunlight in his cell, according to Nicraguan government spokesman Manuel Espinoza.
   Espinoza said the meeting, at an office of the Nicaraguan secret police, lasted 20 minutes.
   The 45-year-old Hasenfus, of Marinette, Wis., was captured by Sandinista soldiers after bailing out of the C-123 transport, which had been struck by a surface-to-air missile.
   A third crewmember, believed also to be American, died in the crash. He has not been identified and his body has not been released.
   Hasenfus told a news conference Thursday that he had participated in 10 supply flights from El Salvador and Honduras for rebels inside Nicaragua and that the CIA was involved in the operation.
   Under restrictions set by Congress, the CIA may not assist the rebels, who have been fighting for 4 1/2  years to topple the leftist Sandinista government.
   The U.S. government has denied any connection with the supply flights.
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez said Tyson met with Hasenfus for only 11 minutes after the captive, his wrists handcuffed behind his back, was escorted by three soldiers from a security forces jeep into the building.
   Espinoza, who attended the meeting, said Hasenfus asked Tyson to bring him fresh clothing, toothpaste and shaving gear.
   Tyson refused to answer reporters' questions when he left the bulding.
   Fernandez said he could not report on what was said because Tyson had not had time to have Hasenfus sign a waiver of privacy act rights. The act prohibits embassy officials from giving information on U.S. citizens without their consent.
   A U.S. official in Managua said the bodies of the plane's pilot, William J. Cooper, and co-pilot Wallace Blaine Sawyer Jr. had been cremated. The official, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said the embassy was told the cremation was necessary because of the advance state of decomposition of the bodies.
   Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Angela Saballos said she could not confirm the cremations.
   "The fundamental point is that (the United States) should not continue sending people to die here, and the best way to do that is to stop the war against Nicaragua," she said. "They send them here to be blown to pieces and then they worry about the remains."
   A broadcast on the official Voice of Nicaragua radio said: "The two Americans arrived as pilots and are leaving as cargo. They came to destroy our people and they were annihilated. They arrived clandestinely and they leave legally."
   Flight records, personal papers and crew logs the Nicaraguan government says it found on the plane indicate that Americans, some reportedly with CIA ties, flew hundreds of flights over the past two years to assist rebels, including combat support operations.
   The Associated Press was allowed to review the documents Thursday night, but copies were not provided.
   The CIA armed and trained the Contras from 1981 to 1984, when Congress prohibited such sponsorship. Congress gave preliminary approval this year to $100 million in aid to the Contras.
   In New York, Nicaragua's foreign minister told the United Nations Friday that the downing of the plane proved that the Reagan administration had lied about its role in efforts to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government.
   "Despite all the lies and subterfuges of the Reagan administration to cover up its criminal policy toward Nicaragua ... the United States is waging a war of aggression against Nicaragua," Miguel d'Escoto said.
   Nicaraguan officials have not announced charges against Hasenfus, but say he will be tried and faces up to 30 years in prison.
   Hasenfus said he was employed by Corporate Air Services, which has the same Miami address as Southern Air Transport, a company formerly owned by the CIA. Hasenfus said Corporate Air had 24 to 26 people in El Salvador.
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Oct 11 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Plane<
^URGENT
   Ortega: American Prisoner Will Be Tried<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega said Saturday that the American captured after Nicaraguan troops shot down an airplane flying supplies to the Contra rebels will be tried in a Sandinista court.
   He also angrily denounced what he called "direct participation" of the U.S. government in aiding guerrillas fighting his leftist Sandinista regime, and said other Americans helping the insurgents would end up in prison or be killed.
   "There are no doubts about the involvement of the United States in all these actions," Ortega said in his first public comment since Eugene Hasenfus was captured earlier this week. He said documents found in the wreckage of the C-123 transport plane proved the role of the U.S. government.
   President Reagan and other U.S. officials have denied any government involvement in the flight.
   Ortega, speaking at a town meeting broadcast nationally by the government- run  Voice of Nicaragua radio, said U.S. officials "stimulate terrorist actions such as this, but when people die they do not take responsibility for the action. ... They just call them heroes."
   "If the United States makes the mistake of invading Nicaragua, that is how American soldiers will end up - dead or prisoners of the Nicaraguan people," Ortega said.
   He said Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., "certainly will have to pay before the People's Anti-Somocista Courts."
   In comments to reporters after his speech, Ortega said Hasenfus will be tried soon.
   "In a very short time, I mean quickly, he will be sent to the appropriate courts to be judged," he said.
   Other Sandinista officials have said Hasenfus could face up to 30 years in prison. The People's Courts were formed after the Sandinista National Liberation Front came to power in July 1979, ending 42 years of rule by the rightist, pro-American Somoza dynasty.
   American officials will seek a second meeting with Hasenfus, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said Saturday. U.S. Consul Donald Tyson was allowed to visit him for 10 minutes on Friday at an office of the secret police.
   Hasenfus was seized Monday, a day after his plane carrying weapons was shot down in southern Nicaragua.
   "We have reason to believe we will be seeing him (Hasenfus) again," said embassy spokesman Alfred Laun.
   He said the U.S. government should be able to "freely communicate with the prisoner," as provided by the Vienna Convention of 1963 which governs consular affairs.
   Tyson has declined to comment on his meeting with Hasenfus.
   Nicaraguan government spokesman Manuel Espinoza said Hasenfus told Tyson he needed fresh clothing, toothpaste and shaving gear. Hasenfus also said he was being treated well, but complained of a lack of sunlight in his cell, Espinoza said.
   Laun said Hasenfus' wife, Sally, delivered to the Foreign Ministry several items her husband had requested. Mrs. Hasenfus arrived in Managua on Wednesday.
   Hasenfus was the first American taken prisoner in Nicaragua since U.S.-supported Contra rebels began their fight 4 1/2  years ago to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government.
   Hasenfus said Thursday he had participated in 10 supply flights from El Salvador and Honduras for rebels inside Nicaragua and that the CIA was involved in the operation.
   The Central Intelligence Agency armed and trained the Contras from 1981 to 1984, when Congress barred such sponsorship. This year, Congress gave preliminary approval to $100 million in aid to the rebels.
   The remains of two Americans who died in the crash were returned to the United States on Friday. They were identified as pilot William J. Cooper and co-pilot Wallace Blaine Sawyer Jr.
   A U.S official in Managua said the bodies had been cremated. The official, spoking on condition of anonymity, said the embassy was told the cremation was necessary because of the advanced state of decomposition of the bodies.
   A third crew member who died in the crash has not been identified and his body has not been released.
   Flight records, personal papers and crew logs the Nicaraguan government says it found in the plane indicate that Americans, some reportedly with CIA ties, flew hundreds of flights over the past two years to assist rebels, including combat support operations.
   The Associated Press was allowed to review the documents Thursday night, but copies were not provided.
   Hasenfus said he was employed by Corporate Air Services, which has the same Miami address as Southern Air Transport, a company formerly owned by the CIA. Hasenfus said Corporate Air had 24 to 26 people in El Salvador.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 12 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Plane
^Ortega Says Hasenfus to be Tried Soon
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega says that an American captured after a rebel supply plane was shot down will be tried soon, but it still was not clear Sunday what charges would be filed against him.
   The president made his first comments on the Oct. 5 downing of a C-123 transport over southern Nicaragua in a nationally broadcast town meeting Saturday.
   Ortega angrily denounced what he called the "direct participation" of the U.S. government in aiding guerrillas fighting the Nicaraguan government.
   Ortega later told reporters that Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., will be tried soon in the People's Courts.
   "In a very short time, I mean quickly, he will be sent to the appropriate courts to be judged," he said.
   Other Sandinist officials have said Hasenfus could face up to 30 years in prison. The People's Courts were formed after the leftist Sandinist National Liberation Front came to power in July 1979, ending 42 years of government by the rightist, pro-American Somoza dynasty.
   The president said documents found in the C-123's wreckage proved the U.S. role. "There are no doubts about the involvement of the United States in all these actions," Ortega said.
   President Reagan and other officials have denied any U.S. government involvement in the flight.
   But Ortega said U.S. officials "stimulate terrorist actions such as this, but when people die they do not take responsibility for the action. ... They just call them heroes."
   Ortega said other Americans helping the insurgents, known as Contras, would end up in prison or be killed. The remains of the American pilot and co-pilot of the plane, who died in the crash, were sent home Friday.
   "If the United States makes the mistake of invading Nicaragua, that is how American soldiers will end up - dead or prisoners of the Nicaraguan people," Ortega said.
   Sandinist troops seized Hasenfus last Monday. He had his first meeting Friday with U.S. consul Donald Tyson.
   Hasenfus was the first American taken prisoner in Nicaragua since U.S.-supported Contra rebels began their fight 4 1/2  years ago to overthrow the Sandinist government.
   Hasenfus said Thursday he took part in 10 supply flights from El Salvador and Honduras for rebels inside Nicaragua and that the CIA was involved in the operation.
   The Central Intelligence Agency armed and trained the Contras from 1981 to 1984, when Congress barred such sponsorship. This year, Congress gave preliminary approval to $100 million in aid to the rebels.
   A third crew member who died in the crash has not been identified and his body has not been released.
   The Reagan administration says that Nicaragua's Sandinist government is trying to export revolution throughout Central America, and that its military ties with the Soviet Union and Cuba  are too close.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 13 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-American
^U.S. Embassy Protests Plan To Try Hasenfus in People's Tribunal
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The U.S. Embassy on Monday protested the Sandinista government's plan to try a captured American in a People's Tribunal, saying that amounted to kangaroo-court justice.
   An embassy note to the Foreign Ministry said the U.S. government "strongly protests the processing of this case by the Anti-Somocista People's Tribunal, a non-judicial body which affords few, if any, of the rights and protections to accused persons generally called for by international conventions and treaties."
   The government's Voice of Nicaragua radio station said the protest was "vile" and was part of an international public opinion campaign by the U.S. government to create the atmosphere for breaking relations with Nicaragua's left-wing government.
   President Daniel Ortega said Saturday that Eugene Hasenfus, who parachuted to safety when a rocket downed the C-123 cargo plane that was flying supplies to Nicaraguan rebels, "certainly" would be tried soon in an Anti-Somocista People's Tribunal.
   The tribunals were set up in 1983, primarily to try people accused of counterrevolutionary activities. The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979, winning a civil war that ended 42 years of rule by the Somoza family.
   Hasenfus was captured on Oct. 6, a day after the U.S.-made plane was shot down by Sandinista troops. Three others aboard, two Americans and the third still not identified, were killed.
   In its protest note, the embassy said that a defendant appearing before a People's Tribunal is denied his legal rights.
   It said the defendant's counsel is seldom advised when his client will appear at the proceedings and when testimony will be taken, convictions are not subject to independent judicial review, and appeals are only permitted to a higher level of the same tribunal system.
   "As it stands, he (Hasenfus) has no rights under this kangaroo-court system," said a U.S. official at a news conference in the American Embassy. Under the news-conference rules, the three U.S. officials who spoke with reporters could not be further identified.
   They said there has been no response to a request by the embassy for further visits with Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis.
   U. S. Consul General Donald Tyson visited with Hasenfus for 11 minutes on Friday, the officials said, but Sandinista leaders also were present and Tyson could not determine the conditions of the prisoner's confinement.
   "There were seven Sandinistas in the room, and I leave it to your own conclusions about how free he felt to talk," said one of the officials.
   The Americans said the embassy has not been informed of the charges against Hasenfus or when he will go on trial. They said the embassy would recommend lawyers to Hasenfus, but he must pay his own legal expenses.
   One U.S. official said the Sandinistas have not said if Hasenfus will be allowed to be represented by an attorney, but Manuel Espinoza, Ortega's spokesman, said Tyson was told Friday that prisoner has a right to have a lawyer.
   Nicaragua has no death penalty, and the maximum prison sentence a person can serve is 30 years.
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Oct 16 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-American
^Jailed American Said to Have Identified Man Who Blew Up Cuban Airliner
^With LaserPhoto MH10
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The government claims a man identified by a captured American as a CIA employee who coordinated rebel supply flights is responsible for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.
   Deputy Interior Minister Luis Carrion Cruz, at a news conference Wednesday at the Managua presidential offices, said pictures of the man once jailed in the airliner bombing were identified last week by captured American Eugene Hasenfus.
   Shown the photos of Luis Posada, Hasenfus identified the man as "a person that he understands is Ramon Medina," Carrion said, but refused to reveal his other sources that caused the government to conclude that Medina's real identity is Posada.
   Carrion said Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., told the Nicaraguan secret police that "Ramon Medina is really Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for the blowing up of a Cubana de Aviacion" plane on a commercial flight from Venezuela to Cuba.
   The plane blew up shortly after takeoff from a stopover in Barbados, killing all 73 on board.
   Most of the passengers were Cuban athletes returning from a fencing tournament in Caracas, Venezuela.
   Hasenfus, captured after Sandinista troops in southern Nicaragua shot down a rebel supply flight Oct. 5, said that Medina and another Cuban-American, Max Gomez, worked for the CIA and coordinated rebel arms supply flights from Ilopango, El Salvador's military airport.
   Asked for comment about the report, Jake Gillespie, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in El Salvador, said: "I know nothing about it."
   President Reagan and other U.S. officials have denied government involvement in the Contra rebel supply flights, which would violate congressional restrictions on aid to the groups fighting Nicaragua's leftist government.
   Posada was jailed for eight years in Venezuela for the 1976 bombing, but escaped under mysterious circumstances last year and disappeared.
   "Later, we learned that Luis Posada was in El Salvador using the pseudonym of Ramon Medina," Carrion said, adding that Posada is "not only a long-term criminal terrorist but is also a long-term CIA agent."
   Hasenfus told Nicaraguan authorities that Medina liked to brag about being a personal friend of Vice President George Bush, Carrion said.
   But Carrion also said, "We did not find in the (downed) airplane any type of documents that directly tie Vice President Bush to the operation."
   Published reports have said Bush's national security adviser Donald Gregg helped place Gomez at Ilopango and that Gomez told associates he reported to Bush in his role as head of the Contra air supply operation.
   Bush has denied he directed the operation, but said he met Gomez three times and that "he's a patriot."
   Gregg also denied directing Gomez.
   Carrion said the Nicaraguan government learned through Hasenfus and other sources that one of Medina's jobs was to "take care of procedures to get documents in the United States Embassy, obviously for the American personnel in El Salvador."
   Such cards for pilot William J. Cooper and co-pilot Wallace Blaine Sawyer Jr., both Americans and both killed in the crash of the supply plane, were displayed last week.
   Carrion did not specify what he meant by American personnel, but was apparently referring to the 24 to 26 Americans in El Salvador that Hasenfus said worked for Corporate Air Services, a Miami-based company.
   The Nicaraguan official said Hasenfus told interrogators that Corporate Air "was a front name for CIA."
   However, Carrion said Hasenfus also is telling his interrogators that no one in El Salvador ever introduced himself as a CIA officer.
   Carrion said Hasenfus "does not feel an obligation to conceal or retain any information he knows about this operation.
   "He has been speaking out of his (free) will," Carrion said. "He said that he was willing to cooperate because this wasn't his war, that he got into this because he needed money...."
   Hasenfus had said last week he was offered $3,000 a month to work in Central America, but Carrion said he also earned $750 for every time he "flew over the Nicaraguan border" in addition to base salary.
   Carrion said that the Nicaraguan government shortly "will officially announce all the details of the judicial process that Mr. Hasenfus will follow."
   The government has not formally charged Hasenfus, but officials said he is likely to be accused of war crimes and could face 30 years in prison.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 16 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-American
^Hasenfus to be Tried by Revolutionary Tribunal
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An American captured when a rebel supply flight was shot down will be tried in a revolutionary "People's Tribunal," the leftist Sandinista government announced Thursday.
   A statement from the Justice Ministry said charges would be filed Monday against Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., "before the People's Anti- Somocista Tribunal."
   It said the charges would be "the formal accusation of the government of Nicaragua for the acts committed by Eugene Hasenfus within the context of the aggression that the government of the United States of America imposes on the Nicaraguan people."
   U.S. officials had complained that placing Hasenfus, captured Oct. 6 after the C-123 transport plane carrying weapons and supplies to the Contra rebels was shot down over southern Nicaragua, before such a tribunal would amount to kangaroo-court justice.
   The State Department said Tuesday an American captured in Nicaragua has little chance for a fair trial. Press officer Pete Martinez said the Nicaraguan government is using the case for "maximum internal and external propaganda advantage."
   Nicaragua formed the tribunals in 1983 to prosecute those accused of counter-revolutionary activities.
   The Justice Ministry's statement said Hasenfus would be accused of violating the law of maintenance of order and public security.
   Sandinista officials have said he could face the 30-year maximum prison sentence allowed in Nicaragua.
   Hasenfus will have the right to a lawyer and an interpreter, and the trial will be public, the Justice Ministry said. Nicaraguan officials said previously that journalists would be allowed to attend Hasenfus' trial, whether he was tried in a people's court or a civilian or military court.
   According to Nicaraguan law, Hasenfuss will be presumed innocent, the Justice Ministry said.
   Hasenfus is being held by State Security, the country's secret police. He has been allowed to see U.S. Consul Donald Tyson for a little more than 10 minutes since his capture.
   He said at a news conference last week that he had taken part in 10 supply flights to the U.S.-backed Contra rebels from Honduras and El Salvador.
   Meanwhile, attorney Ernest Pleger said by telephone from Marinette that the Atlanta firm of King and Spaulding, of which former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell is a member, had been engaged as co-council with Hasenfus' Nicaraguan lawyer. Pleger, retained earlier by Hasenfus' wife, Sally, declined to say who would pay the Atlanta law firm.
   A July report by the New York-based International League of Human Rights says the People's Tribunal system consists of one panel to try cases and another that act as an appeals court.
   Both tribunals have three members, two usually from mass organizations such as the Sandinista Defense Committees and have little or no legal training. The third member is a lawyer who presides over the court.
   The report said the defendant is called before the court without a lawyer present, is read the charges against him and given two days to plead innocent or guilty. The defense attorney then has eight days to prepare his case, although a four-day extension occasionally is granted, and is allowed to meet with his client for one or two hours during that period.
   Unlike regular courts, People's Tribunals often base their convictions solely on confessions, it said.
   The defense has three days to appeal a conviction, it said. No oral arguments are permitted during the appeal, which is based on the trial records and other documents.
   It quoted statistics gathered by the New York-based Americas Watch as saying only one of 550 People's Court cases in 1985 was acquitted.
   "The percentage of convictions by the People's Court system is so high as to indicate a pre-disposition to convict," the league said. The "tribunals fail to comport themselves with the minimum due process standards effective even in a state of emergency, as set forth by the international law authorities."
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Oct 17 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-American
^American Prisoner In Nicaragua To Face 'People's Tribunal'
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A people's tribunal that a human rights group says has a 99.8 percent conviction rate will try an American captured when a rebel supply plane was shot down. Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell agreed today to defend him.
   The U.S. State Department has said a fair trial was impossible, and that it would be a propaganda exercise.
   Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 6 after a C-123 transport plane he was aboard was shot down over southern Nicaragua. The plane was on a supply mission to Contra rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government.
   The Justice Ministry said in a statement Thursday that Hasenfus would be tried by a people's tribunal instead of a regular court. The government gave no reason for the decision.
   The ministry said Hasenfus will appear before the tribunal Monday to hear charges that he violated the law of maintenance of order and public security. The law is part of a national emergency package of regulations the government imposed four years ago in response to the insurgency.
   The ministry said the charges were brought "within the context of the aggression that the government of the United States of America imposes on the Nicaraguan people." It said Hasenfus would have "full guarantees" of due process.
   If convicted, Hasenfus faces up to 30 years in prison.
   Bell, a member of the Atlanta law firm of King and Spalding, today told the Atlanta radio station WGST that he agreed to represent Hasenfus because he was "entitled to have a lawyer, someone of public prominence."
   Bell, who was U.S. attorney general from 1977 to 1979, said the defendant's family asked him last week to represent Hasenfus.
   He said has not spoken with Hasenfus and knows nothing about the Nicaraguan legal system. He said a Nicaraguan lawyer also was being sought.
   Ernest Pleger, a member of Bell's law firm, said Thursday that Bell and a partner of the firm, J.B. Haynes, would be co-counsels.
   Hasenfus has said at Sandinista-controlled news conferences that he took part in 10 rebel supply flights from bases in El Salvador and Honduras and that the flights were coordinated by two CIA agents. Reporters have not been allowed to question him.
   Under congressional restrictions, the CIA may not aid the Contras.
   U.S. officials have said the government did not have a role in the supply flights. They claimed Hasenfus made his statements under duress.
   The people's tribunals were established in 1983 to prosecute people accused of counter-revolutionary activities.
   In a recent report on the tribunals, the New York-based International League of Human Rights said that by the time a defendant hears the charges, he has signed a confession. Unlike regular courts, tribunals often base their convictions solely on confessions.
   The league's report quoted statistics gathered by the New York-based Americas Watch as saying only one of 550 defendants tried by people's tribunals in 1985 was acquitted, meaning that there were convictions in 99.8 percent of the cases.
   A people's tribunal consists of two panels of three members each, one panel to try the case and the other to hear appeals. There is no appeal to the regular court system.
   Two members of each panel are usually from mass organizations such as the Sandinista Defense Committees and have little or no legal training. The third member is a lawyer who presides over the court.
   During its first session, the tribunal usually reads the charges to the defendant who then has two days to enter a plea. An attorney usually is not present for the first session.
   After the plea, the attorney has eight days to prepare his case and is allowed to meet with his client for one or two hours during that period. He also has three days to appeal a conviction, the league's report said.
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Oct 17 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Justice Minister Says Hasenfus Must Have Nicaraguan Lawyer
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The chief defense attorney for Eugene Hasenfus must be a Nicaraguan, but the American prisoner will be allowed to have U.S. legal advisers also, Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes said Friday.
   Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell has agreed to defend Hasenfus who is scheduled to be tried before a People's Tribunal on charges of violating Nicaragua's maintenance of order and public security law.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 6, the day after soldiers in southern Nicaragua shot down a military transport plane carrying supplies to anti-Sandinista rebels. Officials said he parachuted to safety and the three other crewmen of the U.S.-made C-123, including the two American pilots, were killed in the crash.
   Reyes told The Associated Press that while Hasenfus "has the right to have anyone he likes as an adviser," the law decrees that he must be represented by a Nicaraguan attorney registered with the Supreme Court.
   The Justice Ministry announced Thursday that Hasenfus would be tried by the Anti-Somocista People's Tribunal, which was established in 1983 to try cases of alleged counter-revolutionary activities. The tribunal is named after the late right-wing President Anastasio Somoza who was ousted by the Sandinistas in a civil war in 1979.
   If convicted, Hasenfus could face up to 30 years in prison. Nicaragua does not have the death penalty.
   Bell, a member of the Atlanta law firm of King and Spalding, told Atlanta radio station WGST he had agreed to represent Hasenfus because he was "entitled to have a lawyer, someone of public prominence."
   Bell said Hasenfus' family asked him last week to represent the defendant.
   He said he had not spoken with Hasenfus and knew nothing about Nicaragua's legal system. He also said a Nicaraguan lawyer was being sought. Bell served as attorney general from 1977-79.
   Reyes said Hasenfus could choose his own chief defense lawyer or have one appointed for him.
   Hasenfus is to appear before the tribunal Monday to hear the charges against him, the first step in the proceedings.
   "We are preparing the accusation based on evidence found in the plane and other evidence," Reyes said. "We have not named the prosecutor but we will have done so by Monday."
   The U.S. Embassy press attache, Alberto Fernandez, said it appeared the Sandinistas were preparing a show trial.
   "On the one hand they want to condemn the United States as much as they can to make us look as bad as possible. On the other hand, they must make the trial seem as fair as possible," he said.
   Fernandez also said the embassy still has not been told if U.S. officials will be allowed to see Hasenfus before the trial begins.
   His only contact with a U.S. official since his capture was an 11-minute meeting on Oct. 10 with Consul Donald Tyson. Ranking Sandinistas, including the commander of the secret police, also were at the meeting and their presence made it obvious that Hasenfus was unable to speak freely, American officials said.
   A report issued last July by the New York-based International League for Human Rights said most of the defendants who have appeared before the People's Tribunal were convicted solely on the basis of statements they signed while under detention.
   Hasenfus, at a news conference arranged by his captors last week, said he had flown 10 previous missions to drop military supplies to the rebels, and that two Cuban-American CIA employees in El Salvador organized the flights.
   Deputy Interior Minister Luis Carrion Cruz said Hasenfus has provided detailed information on the rebel supply program, and all of his statements were being recorded on tape and written down.
   Reporters have not been allowed to speak with Hasenfus to verify the government's claims or determine if he made or signed the statements attributed to him.

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Oct 20 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus
^Tribunal Charges Captured American
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The leftist Sandinista government brought Eugene Hasenfus before a revolutionary court Monday and charged him with terrorism and violating public order on behalf of the U.S. government.
   The 45-year-old American, dressed in a black T-shirt, dirty blue jeans and combat boots, listened stonily as the court president seated at the same rectangular table read more than 14 pages of charges against him.
   Court President Reynaldo Monterrey then asked Hasenfus if he had anything to say. "I have nothing to say until I have a chance to talk to my lawyer," Hasenfus replied.
   If convicted by the People's Tribunal, Hasenfus faces up to 30 years in prison. He was captured Oct. 6 by government troops who shot down a cargo plane ferrying supplies to U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   "We will demonstrate that the actions imputed (to Hasenfus) are indissolubly linked to the official policy of the government of the United States towards the Republic of Nicaragua," said Monterrey, reading the government's charges against Hasenfus.
   "In flying over Nicaraguan territory with the object of supplying forces financed and directed by the North American government who act against the legally constituted government of Nicaragua without any expressed authorization of this country, (Hasenfus) is carrying out acts that impair the independence, the sovereignty and the integrity of the nation," the charges read.
   Nicaragua charged the United States had violated "the sacred basic principles of our internal laws and the charters of the United Nations, the Organization of American States and other treaties in force, as well as the basic principles of customary international law."
   The accusations were translated into English by an interpreter.
   Written charges against Hasenfus were presented by Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes in the small courtroom, which was packed with journalists.
   Reyes said the charges were "violating the public order and security, criminal association and terrorism." The justice minister said government documents turned over to the court included Hasenfus' confession.
   Hasenfus was brought into the courtroom about two hours after the hearing started, and was seated at a table near the court president. His wife Sally arrived at the court moments before the session began, accompanied by U.S. Consul Donald Tyson.
   Hasenfus turned occasionally to smile at his wife, who stood about 15 feet behind him.
   The defendant's Nicaraguan lawyer, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, also attended the session. He lawyer criticized the government for making it impossible to see Hasenfus before the trial started.
   "They have kept him isolated. We have not managed to see him. It is not until now that the public trial opens," Sotelo Borgen said. "He has not had the advise of counsel."
   Hasenfus, his Nicaraguan attorney said, "is in a legally indefensible position because he has been unable to see his attorney or his family before the trial."
   Hasenfus, of Marinette, Wis., was captured a day after a C-123 cargo plane was shot down by Sandinista troops. Three others aboard, two Americans and a third still not identified, were killed.
   The cargo plane was ferrying supplies to U.S.-backed Contra rebels who are fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's government.
   Hasenfus' wife and his brother, William, arrived in Managua Sunday night and were met by U.S. Embassy officials at Augusto Cesar Sandino International Airport. They did not speak to reporters.
   The People's Tribunal is a judicial body created in 1983 to prosecute people accused of counter-revolutionary activity. Each panel consists of a lawyer and two lay people, all generally active in Sandinista organizations.
   In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the tribunals were set up for the purpose of circumventing due process in order to persecute political opponents.
   Redman also said the only visit to Hasenfus by a U.S. consular officer took place on Oct. 10.
   "We don't consider that visit to have been a proper one," Redman said. "We've demanded that the Nicaraguan government accede to our repeated requests for a consular visit consistent with its treaty obligations."
   Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell volunteered last week to defend Hasenfus, but Nicaraguan law requires that the chief defense lawyer be a Nicaraguan. Bell said in Atlanta that he would leave for Managua on Thursday.
   Sotelo Borgen was asked by Bell to take the case.
   During the initial proceedings, the government's charges will be read against Hasenfus. His attorneys then have three days to prepare a defense. After that, the proceedings normally last eight to 12 days.
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez said, "The Sandinistas' real concern is the propaganda" value of the trial.
   U.S. officials have denied accusations by the Sandinistas and statements Hasenfus made to reporters that CIA employees organized the flights to supply the rebels with military hardware. Congress has prohibited the CIA from aiding the rebels.
   Hasenfus said in a government-organized press conference that he had participated in 10 of the flights and that they originated from a U.S.-financed air base in El Salvador and a U.S.-constructed airfield in Honduras.
   Reyes said, "It appears there are direct links to the administration of the United States" in the Contra supply flights.
   Hasenfus said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" that he helped supply arms to the rebels for the money rather than for ideological reasons.
   He said he believed he was working for the U.S. government when the cargo plane was shot down.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 21 1986
^PM-Hasenfus-Trial
^Spotlights Shine on One-Room Courthouse with PM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus, Bjt
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Eugene Hasenfus is on trial in a one-room courthouse that barely holds the scores of foreign reporters attracted by Nicaragua's first prosecution of an American in the U.S.-backed Contra war.
   Hasenfus, 45, was one of the few in the room who appeared unaffected by the heat Monday as he sat for more than two hours at a 20-foot-long conference table and heard the charges read against him, first in Spanish, then in English.
   With him at the table were attorney Reynaldo Monterrey, president of the People's Anti-Somocista Tribunal, and an interpreter and a court clerk.
   Occasionally, Hasenfus turned to smile at his wife, Sally, who stood about 15 feet behind him surrounded by about 100 journalists.
   The tribunals were formed in 1983 to try individuals suspected of counterrevolutionary activity. The word "Somocista" in their name refers to the late dictator Anastasio Somoza, who was ousted in the 1979 revolution.
   On the front wall of the courtroom, a mural shows a group of women carrying a banner that reads, "For the dead, our dead, we swear to defend the victory."
   Monterrey, wiping his face with a handkerchief, read a 14-page document stating the charges against Hasenfus. By the fifth page, Hasenfus, who is not known to understand much, if any, Spanish, began impatiently tapping the arm of his chair.
   Besides Monterrey, the panel trying Hasenfus has two lay members, identified by tribunal administrators as Luis Perez and Domingo Matute. Nothing more is known about the two men and, in the crush of reporters, it could not be determined if they were in the courtroom.
   Outside the building, which stands behind a wire fence on Managua's western outskirts, curious Nicaraguans waited with journalists throughout the day for Hasenfus' late-afternoon arrival.
   One bystander approached the reporters and began shouting, "Think about all of the widows in Nicaragua. Think about all the orphans. That gringo should be executed." A few people applauded the suggestion.
   Hasenfus was transported to the building in a green paddy wagon. A Sandinista soldier unlocked its rear door, then unlocked an interior wire gate and Hasenfus, squinting in the glare of TV lights, was led by several soldiers into the building.
   Security appeared light. Journalists were allowed to enter the building without the examination of their equipment that is standard at government events.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 21 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus
^U.S. Policy On Trial Along With Hasenfus
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The Sandinista government opened its case against Eugene Hasenfus, the first American captured in the Washington-backed rebel war, with a scathing review of the history of U.S.-Nicaraguan relations.
   No details of the government's evidence against Hasenfus were revealed in the 14-page accusation read Monday in a "People's Tribunal" that specializes in judging those charged with counterrevolutionary acts.
   In a sweltering courtroom packed with reporters, Hasenfus sat stonily at a table with court president Reynaldo Monterrey. He listened as he was formally charged with terrorism, criminal association and violating the public order and security on behalf of the U.S. government.
   "I have nothing to say until I talk with my lawyer," Hasenfus, dressed in a black T-shirt, dirty blue jeans and combat boots without laces, said after the accusation was read first in Spanish, then in English.
   The 45-year-old from Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 6 after Sandinista soldiers shot down a C-123 military transport plane carrying supplies to rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government. Two other Americans and a third man, still unidentified, were killed.
   Hasenfus, who met for the first time with defense attorney Enrique Sotelo Borgen after the session, has two days to enter a plea. The lawyer said he would ask permission to talk with his client again today.
   In Washington, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said today Nicaragua was conducting a "show trial with the objective of trotting out all the complaints, allegations that it has had against the United States for years.
   "If this is an example of Sandinista justice, we want the world to see it," he said.
   In Madison, Wis., Gov. Anthony Earl appealed to Nicaragua to free Hasenfus on humanitarian grounds. Wisconsin and Nicaragua are sister states in the Partners in the Americas program.
   Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes gave the court a four-page document identified as Hasenfus' confession, as well as a recommendation that the American be sentenced to 30 years in prison, the maximum penalty for the charges.
   "In flying over Nicaraguan territory with the object of supplying forces financed and directed by the North American government who act against the legally constituted government of Nicaragua ... (Hasenfus) is carrying out acts that impair the independence, the sovereignty and the integrity of the nation," said the accusation read by Monterrey.
   The document recounted the United States' military occupation of Nicaragua from 1926-33, its support for the 34-year Somoza family dictatorship and its attempts to undermine the Sandinistas since they ousted Anastasio Somoza in 1979.
   "We will demonstrate that the actions imputed (to Hasenfus) are indissolubly linked to the official policy of the government of the United States towards the Republic of Nicaragua," the accusation read.
   It said the United States had violated "the sacred basic principles of our internal laws and the charters of the United Nations, the Organization of American States and other treaties in force, as well as the basic principles of customary international law."
   "Since the middle of the past century," it said, U.S. armed forces have "caused the losses of thousands of (Nicaraguan) lives, shattering not only in the material sense, but also to the cultural and spiritual heritage of our people."
   Sotelo Borgen criticized the emphasis on the United States, saying, "This is not the place for that. This shows this (trial) has a political and propagandistic purpose."
   President Daniel Ortega hinted at the nature of the trial during a weekend speech denouncing President Reagan's signing Saturday of a bill containing $100 million in new aid for the rebels, who are called Contras.
   "I insist that the greater criminal, the godfather, is Mr. Reagan and that Mr. Hasenfus is a victim of that political terrorist. But justice must be done," Ortega said.
   Hasenfus' wife Sally and his brother William were in the courtroom and listened to the charges with a private interpreter. Hasenfus turned occasionally to smile at his wife, who stood about 15 feet behind him.
   The People's Tribunal, created in 1983, consists of two lay people and a lawyer who serves as the panel's president. The tribunal gives defense lawyers three days to prepare their case, after which the proceedings normally last eight to 12 days.
   Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell volunteered last week to defend Hasenfus, but Nicaraguan law requires that the chief defense lawyer be a Nicaraguan. Bell said in Atlanta that he would leave for Managua on Thursday to act as an adviser.
   Sotelo Borgen was asked by Bell to take the case.
   U.S. officials have denied accusations by the Sandinistas and statements Hasenfus made to reporters that CIA agents organized the rebel supply flights. Congress has prohibited the CIA from aiding the rebels.
   Hasenfus said in a government-organized press conference that he had participated in 10 arms drop flights and that they originated from air bases in El Salvador and Honduras, both staunch U.S. allies.
   Hasenfus said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" that he helped supply arms to the rebels for the money rather than for ideological reasons.
   He said he believed he was working for the U.S. government when the cargo plane was shot down.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 22 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus
^No Plea Delay For Hasenfus
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An attorney representing Eugene Hasenfus said Wednesday he will deny some of the Sandinista government's charges against his American client, which include terrorism and violating Nicaraguan security.
   Earlier in the day, the attorney and two laymen who make up the People's Tribunal that is trying Hasenfus refused to give the lawyer, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, more time to prepare his case and enter a plea.
   Sotelo Borgen, who was hired by Hasenfus' family, said he would respond to the charges on Thursday as required.
   Hasenfus is accused of acting on behalf of the U.S. government when the C- 123 cargo plane on which he was a crew member was shot down Oct. 5 in southern Nicaragua. It carried supplies for U.S.-backed rebels fighting Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.
   Three other men aboard were killed - two Americans and one who has not been identified.
   "There are some things we will deny. I will not say what," Sotelo Borgen told reporters following a two-hour meeting with Hasenfus at the tribunal offices a half-mile from the U.S. Embassy in Managua.
   After the meeting, Hasenfus, who appeared to be wearing clean clothing, was escorted by four soldiers who pushed through waiting reporters and put him inside a green paddy wagon, apparently to return him to prison.
   Also attending the meeting were Hasenfus' wife, Sally, and brother, William, and an intepreter, the lawyer said. He said he and Hasenfus spent about 1 1/2  hours going over 12 pages of government charges.
   Mrs. Hasenfus spoke briefly to reporters after the meeting. Asked if she felt optimistic, she said, "I won't feel completely optimistic until I get him home. I am very happy I was able to meet him. Considering the situation he is in, he is feeling OK."
   Asked if she felt her husband was receiving sufficent support from the U.S. government, Mrs. Hasenfus replied, "I would rather not comment on that except to say I like American Embassy employees as friends."
   It was the second time Sotelo Borgen has met with Hasenfus this week. He was permitted to meet with Hasenfus first on Monday, for five minutes, after charges were presented at the trial's opening session.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
   The Sandinistas, who overthrew the right-wing government of President Anastasio Somoza in July 1979, set up the People's Tribunal in 1983 to prosecute those accused of counter-revolution. Foreign reports of its conviction rate range as high as 99.8 percent.
   In an NBC television interview broadcast Tuesday, Hasenfus said: "I'm guilty of everything they've charged. It's there. How can I say I wasn't carrying small arms and munitions to their resistance?"
   "It is important that he not be declared guilty on a television network," Sotelo Borgen told reporters Wednesday outside the court.
   On Wednesday, the lawyer requested a two-day extension of the Thursday deadline for entering a plea on grounds that he needed more time to discuss the case with his client.
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez said the Nicaraguan government has refused repeated requests to allow U.S. officials to meet with Hasenfus.
   "The Sandinistas have been consistent in ignoring Mr. Hasenfus' legal rights from the beginning and have been more interested in manipulating him for propaganda purposes," Fernandez said.
   In its broadcast report, NBC said Hasenfus is sure he was working for the CIA and feels abandoned by the U.S. government, which denies involvement in the supply flights.
   "All I hear is negative reports saying that they don't know me, that they don't know what's happening here. Somebody does," Hasenfus said.
   Hasenfus said he was working "for a paycheck, and it's an established fact already. If I'm considered a mercenary or a soldier of fortune, that's it then."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 23 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus
^Hasenfus' Attorney To Plan Defense Today With Former U.S. Attorney General
^With LaserPhoto NY6
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The attorney for captured American Eugene Hasenfus said he and former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell would begin planning a defense today against Sandinista charges which include terrorism and violating Nicaraguan security.
   Enrique Sotelo Borgen refused to say how he would plead Hasenfus' case before the People's Tribunal, which under Nicarguan law must be done today. The tribunal of a lawyer and two laymen refused Wednesday to give him more time to prepare his case and enter a plea.
   "There are some things we will deny. I will not say what," Sotelo Borgen told reporters following a two-hour meeting Wednesday with Hasenfus at the tribunal offices a half-mile from the U.S. Embassy in Managua.
   Sotelo Borgen stopped short of saying how his client would plead, telling reporters, "We have not resolved that yet."
   The Sandinistas, who overthrew the right-wing government of President Anastasio Somoza in July 1979, set up the People's Tribunal in 1983 to prosecute those accused of counter-revolution. Foreign reports of its conviction rate range as high as 99.8 percent.
   Bell, attorney general under former President Jimmy Carter, was scheduled to arrive in Managua later today. Bell, of Atlanta, volunteered last week to defend Hasenfus, but by law the chief defense lawyer must be Nicaraguan.
   Sotelo Borgen said he and Bell would "analyze the case deeply and estabish a defensive strategy."
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis, is accused of acting on behalf of the U.S. government when the C-123 cargo plane on which he was a crew member was shot down Oct. 5 in southern Nicaragua. It carried supplies for U.S.-backed rebels fighting Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
   Three other men aboard were killed - two Americans and one who has not been identified. Hasenfus was captured by Sandinista troops the following day.
   Hasenfus has said he participated in 10 of the flights and they originated from a U.S.-financed base in El Salvador and a U.S.-constructed airfield in Honduras.
   Meanwhile, another former U.S. attorney general, Ramsey Clark, arrived here Wednesday night "to find out as much as possible about the role of the United States government in the flight that was shot down."
   Clark, who has been active in a variety of liberal causes since leaving office in 1969, said he was not representing any group during his visit.
   Speaking briefly to reporters at the Sandino International Airport, Clark said, "He (Hasenfus) seems to believe that he was working for the United States government and if that is true, it should not deny him now."
   After the Wednesday meeting with his lawyer, Hasenfus was escorted by four soldiers who pushed through waiting reporters and put him inside a green patrol vehicle, apparently to return him to prison.
   It was the second time Sotelo Borgen met with Hasenfus this week. He was permitted to meet with Hasenfus first on Monday, for five minutes, after charges were presented at the trial's opening session.
   Also attending the Wednesday meeting were Hasenfus' wife, Sally, his brother, William, and an intepreter, the lawyer said. He said he and Hasenfus spent about 1 1/2  hours going over 12 pages of government charges.
   Mrs. Hasenfus spoke briefly to reporters after the meeting. Asked if she felt optimistic, she said, "I won't feel completely optimistic until I get him home. I am very happy I was able to meet him. Considering the situation he is in, he is feeling OK."
   Asked if she felt her husband was receiving sufficent support from the U.S. government, Mrs. Hasenfus replied, "I would rather not comment on that except to say I like American Embassy employees as friends."
   She also told reporters her husband needs the "backing" of the U.S. media and public.
   In an NBC television interview broadcast Tuesday, Hasenfus said: "I'm guilty of everything they've charged. It's there. How can I say I wasn't carrying small arms and munitions to their resistance?"
   U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez said Wednesday the Nicaraguan government has "been consistent in ignoring Mr. Hasenfus' legal rights from the beginning and have been more interested in manipulating him for propaganda purposes."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 23 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Church
^Government, Church Meet Again to Try to Ease Tensions
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Representatives of the government and the Roman Catholic Church discussed the expulsion of two priests from Nicaragua during a private meeting, the official newspaper said Thursday.
   The Sandinista newspaper Barricada said the two sides at the Monday meeting also talked about the government's decision to shut down the diocese's Catholic Radio station.
   The meeting was part of a new effort to ease tensions between the leftist Sandinista government and the church.
   President Daniel Ortega and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo met late last month for the first time in nearly two years to try to normalize relations and agreed to have their representatives hold further discussions. Monday's meeting was the second between the aides.
   Barricada quoted Ortega's chief of staff, Rene Nunez, as saying that both sides "have the will and the spirit" to resolve their problems.
   Nunez and Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes represented the government at the meeting. Church representatives were Monsignor Bosco Vivas, the secretary of the Episcopal Conference; Carlos Sancti, bishop of Matagalpa, and Monsignor Paolo Giglio, the Vatican's envoy to Managua.
   Vivas was not in his office Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
   Obando y Bravo, with the apparent support of Pope John Paul II, has been a critic of the Sandinistas since they came to power in July 1979. He argues the government is trying to install a Cuban-like system and accuses it of human rights violations.
   The government has accused church leaders of siding with the U.S.-backed Contra rebels who are fighting the Sandinistas.
   In January, the government shut down the diocese's radio station after it failed to transmit a speech by Ortega.
   In June, the government prohibited the church spokesman, Monsignor Bismarck Carballo, from returning to Nicaragua from a trip abroad. In July, it expelled Monsignor Pablo Antonio Vega, bishop of Juigalpa and former president of the Bishops' Conference.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 23 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus<
^URGENT Hasenfus' Lawyer says Hasenfus Innocent<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The lawyer for Eugene Hasenfus denied before a revolutionary tribunal Thursday that his American client was guilty of terrorism and violating Nicaraguan security
   The attorney, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, also said the People's Tribunal, which is hearing the case, does not have the authority to judge Hasenfus because it "lacks impartiality" and was not appointed by the Supreme Court. Hasenfus, reportedly being held in a prison outside Managua, did not attend the hearing.
   Sotelo Borgen said his client "denies, rejects and contradicts ... all those" allegations by the leftist regime.
   He said the tribunal "are judge in part, but on the one hand they are anti-Somocistas and ... they judge my client like a Somocista."
   Somocista is a term referring to followers of former right-wing President Anastasio Somoza, who was deposed by the leftist Sandinistas in 1979.
   The lawyer had refused to say in advance what plea he would enter for his client. He and Hasenfus met on Wednesday for two hours at the tribunal offices located about a half-mile from the U.S. Embassy in Managua.
   It was only the second time he was allowed to meet with his client, the first American taken prisoner in the Sandinista government's 4 -year war against U.S.-supported Contra rebels.
   Griffin Bell, who was U.S. attorney general under President Jimmy Carter, was expected to come here to aid in Hasenfus' defense. Soltelo Borgen said he and Bell would "analyze the case deeply and establish a defensive strategy."
   Bell, of Atlanta, volunteered last week to defend Hasenfus, but the law requires the chief defense lawyer be Nicaraguan.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 5 when the C-123 cargo plane on which he was a crew member was shot down in southern Nicaragua. It carried arms and supplies for the Contras, and the Sandinistas claim the operation was run by the U.S. government.
   Three other men aboard the C-123 were killed - two Americans and one who has not been identified.
   The People's Tribunal, made up of a lawyer, a truck driver and a laborer, refused Wednesday to grant more time for preparing the case.
   If convicted, Hasenfus faces up to 30 years in prison. The tribunals were set up in 1983 to try people accused of counterrevolutionary activity. Reports from human rights groups indicate most cases brought before them end in conviction.
   Hasenfus has said that he participated in 10 Contra supply flights and that they originated from a U.S.-financed military base in El Salvador and a U.S.-constructed airfield in Honduras.
   Also attending the lawyer's meeting Wednesday with Hasenfus were his wife Sally, his brother William and an interpreter, Sotelo Borgen said.
   Mrs. Hasenfus spoke briefly to reporters after the meeting. Asked if she felt optimistic, she said, "I won't feel completely optimistic until I get him home. I am very happy I was able to meet with him. Considering the situation he is in, he is feeling OK."
   In an NBC television interview broadcast Tuesday, Hasenfus said: "I'm guilty of everything they've charged. It's there. How can I say I wasn't carrying small arms and munitions to their resistance?"
   But Sotelo Borgen later told reporters, "It is important that he not be declared guilty on a television network."
   The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979, ending 42 years of rule by the rightist, pro-American Somoza family. The U.S. government later covertly helped form the Contra insurgency, saying it was justified because of the Sandinistas' close ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union and alleged efforts to export leftist revolution.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 23 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Church
^Government, Church Meet Again to Try to Ease Tensions
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Representatives of the government and the Roman Catholic Church discussed the expulsion of two priests from Nicaragua during a private meeting, the official newspaper said Thursday.
   The Sandinista newspaper Barricada said the two sides at the Monday meeting also talked about the government's decision to shut down the diocese's Catholic Radio station.
   The meeting was part of a new effort to ease tensions between the leftist Sandinista government and the church.
   President Daniel Ortega and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo met late last month for the first time in nearly two years to try to normalize relations and agreed to have their representatives hold further discussions. Monday's meeting was the second between the aides.
   Barricada quoted Ortega's chief of staff, Rene Nunez, as saying that both sides "have the will and the spirit" to resolve their problems.
   Nunez and Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes represented the government at the meeting. Church representatives were Monsignor Bosco Vivas, the secretary of the Episcopal Conference; Carlos Sancti, bishop of Matagalpa, and Monsignor Paolo Giglio, the Vatican's envoy to Managua.
   Vivas was not in his office Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
   Obando y Bravo, with the apparent support of Pope John Paul II, has been a critic of the Sandinistas since they came to power in July 1979. He argues the government is trying to install a Cuban-like system and accuses it of human rights violations.
   The government has accused church leaders of siding with the U.S.-backed Contra rebels who are fighting the Sandinistas.
   In January, the government shut down the diocese's radio station after it failed to transmit a speech by Ortega.
   In June, the government prohibited the church spokesman, Monsignor Bismarck Carballo, from returning to Nicaragua from a trip abroad. In July, it expelled Monsignor Pablo Antonio Vega, bishop of Juigalpa and former president of the Bishops' Conference.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 23 1986^AM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus<
^URGENT Hasenfus' Lawyer says Hasenfus Innocent<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The lawyer for Eugene Hasenfus denied before a revolutionary tribunal Thursday that his American client was guilty of terrorism and violating Nicaraguan security
   The attorney, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, also said the People's Tribunal, which is hearing the case, does not have the authority to judge Hasenfus because it "lacks impartiality" and was not appointed by the Supreme Court. Hasenfus, reportedly being held in a prison outside Managua, did not attend the hearing.
   Sotelo Borgen said his client "denies, rejects and contradicts ... all those" allegations by the leftist regime.
   He said the tribunal "are judge in part, but on the one hand they are anti-Somocistas and ... they judge my client like a Somocista."
   Somocista is a term referring to followers of former right-wing President Anastasio Somoza, who was deposed by the leftist Sandinistas in 1979.
   The lawyer had refused to say in advance what plea he would enter for his client. He and Hasenfus met on Wednesday for two hours at the tribunal offices located about a half-mile from the U.S. Embassy in Managua.
   It was only the second time he was allowed to meet with his client, the first American taken prisoner in the Sandinista government's 4 -year war against U.S.-supported Contra rebels.
   Griffin Bell, who was U.S. attorney general under President Jimmy Carter, was expected to come here to aid in Hasenfus' defense. Soltelo Borgen said he and Bell would "analyze the case deeply and establish a defensive strategy."
   Bell, of Atlanta, volunteered last week to defend Hasenfus, but the law requires the chief defense lawyer be Nicaraguan.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 5 when the C-123 cargo plane on which he was a crew member was shot down in southern Nicaragua. It carried arms and supplies for the Contras, and the Sandinistas claim the operation was run by the U.S. government.
   Three other men aboard the C-123 were killed - two Americans and one who has not been identified.
   The People's Tribunal, made up of a lawyer, a truck driver and a laborer, refused Wednesday to grant more time for preparing the case.
   If convicted, Hasenfus faces up to 30 years in prison. The tribunals were set up in 1983 to try people accused of counterrevolutionary activity. Reports from human rights groups indicate most cases brought before them end in conviction.
   Hasenfus has said that he participated in 10 Contra supply flights and that they originated from a U.S.-financed military base in El Salvador and a U.S.-constructed airfield in Honduras.
   Also attending the lawyer's meeting Wednesday with Hasenfus were his wife Sally, his brother William and an interpreter, Sotelo Borgen said.
   Mrs. Hasenfus spoke briefly to reporters after the meeting. Asked if she felt optimistic, she said, "I won't feel completely optimistic until I get him home. I am very happy I was able to meet with him. Considering the situation he is in, he is feeling OK."
   In an NBC television interview broadcast Tuesday, Hasenfus said: "I'm guilty of everything they've charged. It's there. How can I say I wasn't carrying small arms and munitions to their resistance?"
   But Sotelo Borgen later told reporters, "It is important that he not be declared guilty on a television network."
   The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979, ending 42 years of rule by the rightist, pro-American Somoza family. The U.S. government later covertly helped form the Contra insurgency, saying it was justified because of the Sandinistas' close ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union and alleged efforts to export leftist revolution.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 24 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Hasenfus' Lawyer says Hasenfus Innocent
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The lawyer for Eugene Hasenfus declared to a revolutionary tribunal Thursday that his American client was innocent of terrorism and violating Nicaraguan security.
   The attorney, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, also said the People's Tribunal, which is hearing the case, does not have the authority to judge Hasenfus because it "lacks impartiality" and was not appointed by the Supreme Court. Hasenfus, reportedly being held in a prison outside Managua, did not attend the hearing.
   Sotelo Borgen said in a written statement delivered to court officials 20 minutes before the 5:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. EDT) deadline for entering a plea, "I come before the authorities to deny, reject, and contradict all of the concepts of the accusations formulated against my defendant by the minister of justice."
   He also said the tribunal "are judge in part, but on the one hand they are anti-Somocistas and ... they judge my client like a Somocista."
   Somocista is a term referring to followers of former right-wing President Anastasio Somoza, who was deposed by the leftist Sandinistas in 1979.
   "Until now, our client is innocent of these crimes because no sentence has been passed against him," Sotelo's assistant, Luis Andara Ubeda told reporters outside the tribunal office.
   The defense now has eight days, beginning Friday, to present its evidence to the tribunal in a written form, according to Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Angela Sadallos. The lawyer can request a four-day extension.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 5 when the C-123 cargo plane on which he was a crew member was shot down in southern Nicaragua. It carried arms and supplies for the Contras, and the Sandinistas claim the operation was run by the U.S. government. U.S. officials have denied the allegation.
   Three other men aboard the C-123 were killed - two Americans and one who has not been identified.
   Hasenfus has said that he participated in 10 Contra supply flights and that they originated from a U.S.-financed military base in El Salvador and a U.S.-constructed airfield in Honduras.
   The New York Times reported in its Friday editions that Hasenfus said in an interview that rebel supply planes also had used a secret airstrip in Costa Rica this year.
   The newspaper also quoted Hasenfus as saying that Southern Air Transport, a Miami firm, supplied hand tools and mechanics for rebel planes at air bases in El Salvador. Southern Air Transport used to work for the CIA, but company officials say it no longer does so.
   Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell arrived Thursday night at Sandino International Airport and said it was "an absolute fact" that Hasenfus was on board a plane that contained weapons destined for the U.S.-backed rebels.
   But, Bell added, "I have great reason to doubt that he is a terrorist or committed crimes that happened 110 years ago."
   Bell, an Atlanta-based attorney who is assisting Sotelo Borgen in Hasenfus' defense, said, "Some of the (government's 12 pages of) charges are about the bad relations between our country and Nicaragua throughout history. He couldn't possibly be guilty about some of those things."
   Bell also characterized the trial as political.
   "He is an absolute pawn, that is what the trial is about," Bell said. "It is sort of a windfall to Nicaragua that they have him, so they can put on public display the whole foreign policy of our country to Nicaragua."
   Sotelo Borgen had refused to say in advance what plea he would enter for his client. He and Hasenfus met on Wednesday for two hours at the tribunal offices located about a half-mile from the U.S. Embassy in Managua.
   It was only the second time he was allowed to meet with his client, the first American taken prisoner in the Sandinista government's 4 -year war against U.S.-supported Contra rebels.
   Bell, who served as attorney general under President Jimmy Carter, volunteered last week to defend Hasenfus, but the law requires the chief defense lawyer be Nicaraguan.
   Sotelo Borgen, meanwhile, said he and Bell would "analyze the case deeply and establish a defensive strategy."
   The People's Tribunal, made up of a lawyer, a truck driver and a laborer, refused Wednesday to grant more time for preparing the case.
   If convicted, Hasenfus faces up to 30 years in prison. The tribunals were set up in 1983 to try people accused of counterrevolutionary activity. Reports from human rights groups indicate most cases brought before them end in conviction.
   Also attending the lawyer's meeting Wednesday with Hasenfus were his wife Sally, his brother William and an interpreter, Sotelo Borgen said.
   Mrs. Hasenfus spoke briefly to reporters after the meeting. Asked if she felt optimistic, she said, "I won't feel completely optimistic until I get him home. I am very happy I was able to meet with him. Considering the situation he is in, he is feeling OK."
   In an NBC television interview broadcast Tuesday, Hasenfus said: "I'm guilty of everything they've charged. It's there. How can I say I wasn't carrying small arms and munitions to their resistance?"
   But Sotelo Borgen later told reporters, "It is important that he not be declared guilty on a television network."
   The Sandinistas came to power in July 1979, ending 42 years of rule by the rightist, pro-American Somoza family. The U.S. government later covertly helped form the Contra insurgency, saying it was justified because of the Sandinistas' close ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union and alleged efforts to export leftist revolution.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 25 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus
^Hasenfus Attorney says Denied Access to Prisoner
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell said Saturday that the Nicaraguan government has denied him access to Eugene Hasenfus, the American accused of transporting arms to U.S.-backed rebels.
   "It just may be that they (the government) have determined that Mr. Hasenfus is never going to see an American attorney," Bell said at a news conference in a Managua hotel lobby.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 5, one day after Nicaraguan troops shot down the C-123 cargo plane on which he was a crew member. Two other Americans and an unidentified crewman believed to be a Contra rebel were killed in the crash.
   Bell, who served under former President Jimmy Carter, said officials have failed to return his telephone calls to the Justice, Interior and Foreign ministries and to President Daniel Ortega. He said the calls were made in an effort to try to obtain Hasenfus' release.
   Hasenfus is charged with terrorism and violating public security, charges which if convicted could leave him in jail for 30 years. He reportedly is being held in a maximum security prison in Tipitapa, 15 miles from Managua.
   Nicaraguan law requires that the chief defense attorney be a Nicaraguan, but Bell says the law allows him to present a written defense. Bell, now practicing in Atlanta, volunteered to help Nicaraguan lawyer Enrique Sotelo Borgen prepare the defense.
   Sotelo Borgen, who speaks no English, was accompanied by an interpreter when he met with Hasenfus for two hours Wednesday. Hasenfus speaks little or no Spanish.
   Hasenfus may not understand the 19 pages of the charges against him because of the language barrier, Bell said. He said it would be "very unfair" if Hasenfus was denied access to an American legal adviser.
   Sotelo Borgen entered a plea of innocent to the tribunal court on Friday. He also said the court does not have the authority to judge Hasenfus because it "lacks impartiality."
   Hasenfus will be judged by the People's Tribunal Court, made up of a lawyer, truck driver and laborer.
   Hasenfus's wife Sally saw her husband Saturday morning, Bell told reporters. He gave no details of the meeting.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 26 1986
^AM-War Zone Farmers
^Farmers in Nicaraguan War Zone Said to Produce Record Harvest An AP Extra
^With LaserPhoto
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   JALAPA, Nicaragua (AP) _ They sometimes hear the gunfire of Sandinista soldiers fighting Contra guerrillas down the valley, but farmers in this war zone are sowing next season's bean crop and preparing to reap what officials describe as their best corn harvest ever.
   Many work with automatic rifles slung across their backs.
   The corn covers the northern end of the Jalapa Valley, rolling up to the base of the surrounding hills and the border of Honduras.
   Nicaraguan officials claim the farmers here and elsewhere in the war zone are farming more land and are increasing crop production with advice and technical assistance from Cuba, Hungary, Yugoslavia and other countries.
   The Jalapa Valley, 120 miles north of Managua, is brimming with 10,000 acres of corn, more than triple the acreage harvested in 1983, according to Kasto Zavala, the valley's production supervisor for the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform.
   Furthermore, thanks to the foreign technical assistance, the average yield for each acre of corn in Nicaragua has doubled over the past seven years to 3,800 pounds, according to statistics provided by the Agriculture Ministry in Managua.
   The harvest for beans, tobacco and rice in the Jalapa Valley has also climbed, Zavala said, despite the fact that the valley is within easy striking distance of the U.S.-backed Contras trying to defeat the leftist government in Managua from their bases in Honduras.
   Attacks by the rebels on agricultural cooperatives have been sporadic. There have been no concerted attacks in the valley since last spring, when the rebels bombarded about a half dozen tobacco warehouses with mortars and then set them on fire, Zavala said.
   Workers in the fields said they occasionally hear combat as Sandinista troops engage the Contras in firefights along the green hills that surround this valley and mark the Honduran border to the north, east and west.
   Recently, Sandinista troops fought a two-day battle with a company of guerrillas trying to slip back across the border to their base camps in Honduras.
   The farmers said that as they worked in their fields, they could hear gunfire and explosions.
   Ministry of Agriculture officials in Jalapa and in Managua, the capital, attribute the infrequency of attacks on the farms to the fact that many of the farmers are armed.
   Of the roughly 3,000 farmers in the Jalapa valley, 1,800 of them are in the Sandinista militia and have been issued weapons, Zavala said.
   Many of the farmers carry AK-47 automatic rifles slung across their backs as they work or keep them within easy reach.
   "The Contras do not attack the cooperatives because they are unable to," the leftist Sandinista government's deputy agriculture minister, Eduardo Holman Chamorro, said in an interview in Managua.
   Holman said the farmers who receive their land from the government through its agrarian reform program are well motivated to fight off Contra attacks.
   "Jalapa is an economic, political and military project," he said. "We told (the farmers), 'You are now the owners of this land - defend it 3/8'
   "If the Contras try to attack them it will cost them," Holman added. "It will cost the Contras their lives."
   Zavala said 73 percent of the land in Jalapa Valley has new owners under the agrarian reform program.
   Ironically, the farmland here and in other parts of the war zone has been more productive than much of the land in peaceful parts of Nicaragua, Holman said.
   A prolonged drought devastated crops along the rich western coastal plain of Nicaragua, causing much more damage to agriculture than the war itself.
   Holman said he expects the guerrillas to increase attacks on farming cooperatives soon after they receive $100 million in aid authorized by the U.S. Congress this summer.
   But he predicted that the armed farmers still would be able to repel such attacks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 27 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Bell Proposes Hasenfus Exchange for Nicaraguan Prisoners in U.S.
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Griffin Bell, the former U.S. attorney general who is representing Eugene Hasenfus, on Monday gave the Sandinista government a list of 19 Nicaraguans held in U.S. prisons and said he would be willing to initiate an exchange.
   But the former attorney general said he did not know anything about the 19 prisoners and had no reason to think the Sandinistas wanted any of them freed, so there was "hardly a chance" of an exchange.
   He gave no indication he had discussed a prisoner exchange with Reagan administration officials, and in Washington later Monday, three U.S. State Department officials familiar with Central America said they were unaware of any swap proposal. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
   Bell said he had asked Norman Carlson, the director of the Bureau of Prisons and a former law partner, for a list of Nicaraguans in U.S. federal prisons.
   Pat Sledge, an aide to Carlson, said in Washington that the list was furnished at Bell's request but "He (Carlson) did not suggest a swap."
   Bell, attorney general during the Carter administration, is helping prepare the defense for Hasenfus, who is charged with terrorism, violating public security and criminal association.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was in a C-123 cargo plane that was shot down Oct. 5 in southern Nicaragua. The plane was ferrying military supplies to the U.S.-backed Contra rebels, who are fighting the leftist Sandinista government.
   Hasenfus has said he believed he had been working on a covert CIA operation and has complained in interviews with U.S. journalists that he felt abandoned by his government.
   Bell said at a news conference that he gave the prisoner list to Saul Arana, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of U.S. affairs. Bell said if Nicaragua expressed interest in an exchange, he would be "the messenger to the United States to see if our government would agree to an exchange ... I would hope they would."
   He also said he was told his request to see Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega would be relayed "to the highest level."
   A three-man People's Tribunal is hearing the case against Hasenfus, who faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
   Hasenfus' Nicaraguan lawyer, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, denied the charges against Hasenfus in documents filed last Thursday with the revolutionary court.
   In another development, the tribunal said Monday that Sotelo Borgen would be allowed to meet Tuesday afternoon with Hasenfus. The lawyer has only been allowed to meet with his client two times so far.
   Sotelo Borgen on Monday asked the People's Tribunal to begin immediately the period allowed for presentation of evidence, which will last from eight to 12 days. Once the tribunal received the  request, he said at the news conference, it would be obligated to open the case to evidence.
   Bell, who has not yet been able to see Hasenfus, said he was not very clear on the tribunal procedures and called them "arcane."
   He said all evidence must be filed to the tribunal in written statements.
   "I am at a loss as how to file a written statement on behalf of the defendant without talking to him," he said.
   Bell arrived in Managua Thursday night. He earlier volunteered to defend Hasenfus, but under court procedures, the chief defense attorney must be Nicaraguan.
   Bell was asked whether Nicaragua might interpret his work as representing Hasenfus on behalf of the U.S. government.
   "If there is anybody here that thinks I am not representing this man, but am some secret agent representing the CIA, then let them think it. I am sick of that," he answered.
   Under the tribunal system, the defense and government have eight days to 12 days to present arguments to the court. Then the tribunal reviews the evidence and issues a verdict.
   The Sandinistas, who overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in July 1979, established the People's Anti-Somocista Tribunals in 1983 to prosecute people accused of counter-revolutionary activities. They are reported to have a conviction rate of as high as 99.8 percent.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 28 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^American Lawyer Barred from Meeting Hasenfus
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Officials barred former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell from meeting Tuesday with Eugene Hasenfus, his American client who faces 30 years in prison if convicted of terrorism and public security violations.
   Bell, who served in the Carter administration, called the rebuff a "moral outrage. You've got a person charged with serious crimes who cannot talk to his lawyer."
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was in a C-123 cargo plane that was shot down on Oct. 5 in southern Nicaragua as it was ferrying military supplies to the U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   Hasenfus, a former Marine being held in a prison just outside Managua, faces trial before a revolutionary tribunal that is made up of a lawyer, a truck driver and a laborer.
   Bell spoke to reporters outside the tribunal offices shortly after Hasenfus was brought there in the custody of soldiers. Inside, he was able to see Hasenfus only long enough to exchange a few words and shake his hand.
   "I saw Mr. Hasenfus, I shook his hand and I told him I was sorry the government here would not let me meet with him," Bell said. "He said he was sorry also, that he wanted to meet with me."
   Bell said the president of the tribunal, Reynaldo Monterrey, told Hasenfus' Nicaraguan attorney, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, earlier Tuesday that Bell would not be allowed to meet with Hasenfus. Sotelo then petitioned the tribunal in writing to reconsider its decision, Bell said.
   Sotelo, Hasenfus's wife, Sally, his brother, William, and an interpreter met with Hasenfus in the tribunal offices, but Bell left the group.
   "They have got a strong case," Bell conceded. "They would be a lot better off letting me see him rather than create an international incident over a man not being able to talk to his own client. I don't understand it."
   Last week, Sotelo rejected the government's charges and said the tribunal was incompetent to try the case.
   During an eight-day period the defense and the prosecution can submit evidence to the tribunal in written form. The tribunal can then grant a four- day extension. Bell said the eight-day period begins Wednesday.
   "It is quite obvious he is guilty of something," Bell said. "It's just a matter of working out in our own mind what he should plead guilty to, and it is very difficult for an American lawyer to participate in a plea without talking to his client."
   Bell, who practices in Atlanta, said he would fly to the United States on Wednesday to prepare the defense but return to Nicaragua on Sunday.
   The meeting with Hasenfus was only the third time Sotelo Borgen has met with his client since the government filed charges Oct. 20.
   Meanwhile, President Daniel Ortega implied in a Saturday interview that Hasenfus could be pardoned.
   Ortega appeared on "Facing the People," a nationally televised program, and was asked about a possible pardon for Hasenfus on Nov. 8. That is the 25th anniversary of the founding of the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front and the 10th anniversary of the death of founder Carlos Fonseca Amador.
   Ortega said justice in the Hasenfus case will be established through the People's Tribunal.
   But he was quoted in the newspaper Barricada as saying, "It is clear that our revolution has been characterized by being a generous revolution. It is known that many pardons have been given, like those that have been given to the Somocista G.N. (national guards)."
   Hasenfus has said he believed he was working on a covert CIA arms supply operation and has complained in interviews with U.S. journalists that he felt abandoned by his government. The United States has denied any official role in the arms drops.
   The Sandinistas, who overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in July 1979, established the People's Anti-Somocista Tribunals in 1983 to prosecute people accused of counter-revolutionary activities. They are reported to have a conviction rate of as high as 99.8 percent.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 29 1986
^PM-Hasenfus
^Griffin Bell Heads Home After Failing To Meet Hasenfus
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A Nicaraguan prosecutor today opened his case against American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus and presented in court papers found after a Contra supply plane carrying him was shot down.
   Among the evidence presented by the prosecutor, Ivan Villavicencio, was an identification card giving Hasenfus access to a restricted military air base in El Salvador.
   Hasenfus, a 45-year-old former Marine from Marinette, Wis., is on trial before a special political tribunal. He is charged with terrorism, violating public security and conspiracy. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison.
   Starting today, the prosecution and defense have eight to 12 days to present their cases.
   Hasenfus' lawyer, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, was not in court today.
   He said in a telephone interview that once the prosecution has presented its case, the tribunal has to notify him in writing so he can respond to the specific allegations in writing.
   It was not clear whether he then would be able to present defense arguments in person, as Villavicencio was doing.
   Villavicencio showed the court several documents, including Hasenfus' drivers license and an identification card giving him access to the Ilopango air base in El Salvador.
   Hasenfus has said he has participated in 10 arms drops to the Contras from bases in El Salvador and Honduras, and that the operations were coordinated by the CIA.
   He has said tons of arms were stored at the tightly guarded Ilopango base, then shipped to the rebels who are fighting the Nicaraguan government.
   Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte has said his high command told him his government wasn't working with the Contra supply operation, but sources close to the president said the Salvadoran military permitted Americans to run the operation out of Ilopango.
   Hasenfus was captured Oct. 6 after Nicaraguan soldiers shot down a C-123 transport plane with Hasenfus and three others aboard. The plane crashed near El Tule, about 90 miles southwest of Managua.
   The government newspaper Barricada today quoted unidentified government sources as saying Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes would request that the three- member tribunal, made up of a lawyer, a truck driver and a laborer, inspect the crash site.
   Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell, meanwhile, was leaving for the United States today after Nicaraguan authorities barred him from meeting with Hasenfus to help prepare his defense. He said he would return to Nicaragua on Sunday.
   Bell, who headed the Justice Department during the Carter administration, said the government's refusal to permit the meeting was a "moral outrage."
   Visibly upset, he told reporters, "You've got a person charged with serious crimes who cannot talk to his lawyer."
   "They (the Nicaraguans) have got a strong case," Bell said. "They would be a lot better off letting me see him rather than create an international incident over a man not being able to talk to his own client. I don't understand it."
   Hasenfus, in interviews with various U.S. journalists, has said he believed he was working on a covert CIA arms supply operation and has complained of feeling abandoned by his government. The United States has denied any official role in the arms drops.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 30 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^U.S. Mercenary To Be Called To Testify
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A spokeswoman for the revolutionary tribunal trying Eugene Hasenfus said Thursday that the captured American would appear before the court to respond to the terrorism and conspiracy charges against him.
   Spokeswoman Thelma Salinas said Hasenfus also would have a chance to examine the evidence against him when he appears in court Friday.
   The decision was announced a few hours after Attorney General Rodrigo Reyes asked that Hasenfus be brought before the tribunal, 'the sooner the better." Hasenfus previously appeared before the court on Oct. 20, when the charges against him were read.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was a crewman on a plane shot down 0ct. 5 over southern Nicaragua. He was captured the next day and faces 30 years in prison if convicted. Hasenfus has said the C-123 cargo plane was carrying small arms and ammunition to the U.S.- backed Contra rebels.
   Ms. Salinas said Jose Fernando Canales, the soldier who brought down the aircraft with a missile, will testify before the tribunal on Saturday. Next week it will hear from military and Interior Ministry officials, and on Tuesday will view a recording of an American television news program in which Hasenfus was interviewed.
   The special political tribunal trying him studied about 130 pieces of evidence entered one-by-one by the prosecution on Wednesday when the trial began, and awaited more documents and statements from witnesses.
   Reyes said Wednesday he asked court president Reynaldo Monterrey to call Hasenfus. His Nicaraguan lawyer, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, will be with him in court.
   Reyes, who also is justice minister, said he wanted Hasenfus to appear soon, "since I don't want the eight-day period for (presentation of) evidence to expire."
   The court, composed of a lawyer, a truck driver and a laborer, has eight days to receive evidence from the prosecution and defense. It can extend the period by four days.
   Reyes said he is waiting for the court to act on his request Wednesday to name experts to help in determining the authenticity of the identification cards, flight maintenance log and other papers found in the wreckage of the C- 123 or carried by Hasenfus and two pilots.
   The pilots, Wallace B. Sawyer Jr. of Magnolia, Ark., and William J. Cooper, were killed in the crash.
   The state also asked that statements be taken from soldiers who shot down the plane and captured Hasenfus after he parachuted to safety, and from Lt. Col. Roberto Calderon, military chief for the zone where the plane crashed.
   Reyes said he also wants statements from two people who heard Hasenfus make declarations at the Interior Ministry.
   Prosecutor Ivan Villavicencio on Wednesday asked the tribunal to view the videocassette of an interview Hasenfus gave on the CBS program "60 Minutes." In it, Hasenfus said he believed he was working for the U.S. government.
   The American has said he took part in 10 CIA-coordinated arms drops to Contra rebels from Ilopango military base in El Salvador and Aguacate base in Honduras. Tons of arms were stored at Ilopango for shipment to the rebels, he has said.
   One piece of evidence submitted was a card bearing the Salvadoran air force emblem, Hasenfus' name and "Group: USA" and "Specialty: Adviser." On the reverse, under "Restricted areas," was a list of numbers. Nicaraguan authorities say the card gave him access to restricted areas of the base.
   The United States has denied any official role in the arms drops.
   Congress this year authorized $100 million in aid for the Contras.
   The Reagan administration accuses Nicaragua of trying to export revolution to other Central American nations and of having too close military ties with the Soviet Union and Cuba.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 31 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Captured American Declines To Make Statement to Court
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus on Friday refused to make a statement before a revolutionary tribunal trying him on charges he supplied arms to U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   Less than an hour after the hearing began, tribunal President Reynaldo Monterrey called a recess of at least 24 hours to consider a defense motion.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 6 after a rebel supply plane was shot down over Nicaragua. He was charged with terrorism, conspiracy and violating public security. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison.
   Hasenfus has said he took part in 10 CIA-coordinated arms drops to Contra rebels from bases in El Salvador and Honduras. The United States has denied any official role in the supply flights.
   Monterrey asked Hasenfus whether he wanted to make a statement.
   "He does not want to declare now. He does not want to declare yet," said a translator, conveying Hasenfus' reply.
   Earlier, Hasenfus had asked the court whether he had to answer questions or had a right to remain silent during the session.
   "The prisoner must answer all questions, if only yes or no," Monterrey said. "It is not the job of the court to explain things the defense attorney should already have explained to you."
   Hasenfus wore clean blue jeans, white sneakers and light blue workshirt over a black T-shirt for the hearing. He appeared to have a fresh haircut and was clean-shaven.
   Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes, who presented the case for the government, asked Hasenfus to look at a bundle of papers covered with handwriting and verify that it was his confession.
   Defense lawyer Enrique Sotelo Borgen objected, saying "this is not the place for that."
   Monterrey called a recess of at least 24 hours to consider the defense objection.
   Sotelo Borgen later told a news conference that the justice minister had acted illegally in asking Hasenfus to verify the document as his own confession.
   As Hasenfus was led away after the session, he winked at his wife, Sally, but declined to speak to reporters. He was taken into the tribunal offices in an adjoining building where he met with Sotelo Borgen, his brother, William, his wife and an interpreter for an hour and 45 minutes.
   "I feel, under circumstances, he is well," said Mrs. Hasenfus.
   Asked if she had a message, she said in words apparently intended for her husband: "Yes, stay in there and fight."
   Sotelo Borgen said before the court session that he did not want his client to make a statement before the tribunal until the prosecution is done presenting its evidence.
   "That is what the (legal) procedures establish," he told The Associated Press.
   Hasenfus was not allowed to consult with his lawyer during the session.
   The prosecution began presenting its case Wednesday, entering 130 pieces of evidence, including identification cards, the aircraft maintenance log and other papers found in the wreckage of the plane.
   On Friday, Reyes sought to enter as evidence a pistol that looked like a Soviet-made 9mm automatic and a military-style webbed belt which he said was in Hasenfus' possession when he was captured.
   Monterrey refused to accept them, saying all evidence had to be entered with the appropriate documents.
   Reyes told reporters after the session that he thought it made no difference whether or not Hasenfus made a statement.
   "Apart from his confession, the proof is so irrefutable that there is no way he will not be convicted," Reyes said. "I have so much proof that for me this man is ready to be sentenced."
   The three-member tribunal is made up of a truck driver, a laborer and Monterrey, a lawyer. It has eight days, beginning Wednesday, to receive evidence from the prosecution and defense. It may extend the period by four days.
   President Daniel Ortega has hinted that Hasenfus, who is expected to be convicted, might be pardoned by the Sandinista government.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 3 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Bell Says Hasenfus Will Ask Tribunal for Mercy
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell, who is assisting in the defense of American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus, said Monday the prisoner will appeal to the People's Tribunal for mercy.
   Bell told a news conference that Hasenfus, charged with terrorism, will make a statement to the revolutionary tribunal Tuesday afternoon and added:
   "We hope it will help him by mitigating the charges against him. We hope it will cause the Sandinista, the Nicaraguan, government, to be more merciful."
   "As for what he will plead to, that's up in the air," Bell said, "but he has thrown himself on the mercy of the court."
   Bell, from Atlanta, Ga., returned to Nicaragua Sunday. He said he has not been able to talk directly to Hasenfus. "I think it's quite obvious that he's going to be convicted," Bell said. "He didn't fall out of the sky. He was on a plane carrying arms." Bell is working with Hasenfus' Nicaraguan attorney, Enrique Sotelo Borgen.
   Hugo Mendieta, a pilot and the prosecution's expert witness on aviation, testified Monday and retraced the flight of the cargo plane that was shot down Oct. 5 by Sandinista troopers.
   He said he based his account on documents found on the U.S.-made C-123 downed as it crossed into Nicaragua from Costa Rica.
   The plane took off from Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador and flew over Costa Rican territory before entering Nicaraguan air space, he said.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., parachuted to safety after the C-123 was hit by an anti-aircraft missile. The three other men aboard, American pilots William Cooper and Wallace Blaine Sawyer, Jr., and a Nicaragucan rebel were killed in the crash.
   Hasenfus has said the plane was on a mission to drop supplies to the U.S.-supported rebels fighting Nicaragua's leftist government. He was in the court and watched Mendieta trace the route of the plane on a map.
   Sotelo Borgen did not question Mendieta, but after the session he told reporters the "principal actors in the crime are dead - Captain Bill (Cooper) and the co-pilot" Sawyer.
   "In reality, Hasenfus is no more than an accomplice," he said. "He knows nothing about piloting airplanes. He is just a cargo loader for airplanes."
   Hasenfus sat beside his wife Sally and his brother William, who have been present during the defendant's appearances in the courtroom.
   About 30 journalists attended Monday's session, compared to about 100 when the trial began last week.
   Mendieta said a flight log found in the wreckage of the plane showed Sawyer had flown 240 times since July 1985.
   He claimed the log showed that Hasenfus accompanied Sawyer on nine of the flights, including some that originated in Ilopango and went to Aguacate Air Base in Honduras and also to an airstrip recently completed by U.S. forces at Mocoron in southeastern Honduras.
   The Aguacate base also was constructed with the assistance of U.S. troops on joing military maneuvers with Honduran forces.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 4 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Hasenfus Asks Sandinista Tribunal For Mercy
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A captured American mercenary said Tuesday he would ask the Nicaraguan government to show compassion if he is found guilty by a revoluntionary court of terrorism and other crimes against the state.
   Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., made the statement while being questioned by the prosecution and his chief defense attorney in the afternoon session of the Sandinista People's Tribunal.
   Near the end of the session, Hasenfus' Nicaraguan attorney Enrique Sotelo Borgen asked the cargo handler:
   "If at the end of this trial you are to be found guilty and sentenced to prison, would you ask the Nicaragua government to be generous and show you compassion so you could return to your home and to your wife and small children?"
   "Yes, I would," Hasenfus replied.
   Hasenfus acknowledged that he was aboard a U.S.-made C-123 cargo plane that was flying arms to Nicaraguan rebels when the plane was shot down by Sandinista troops in Southern Nicaragua on Oct. 5.
   He parachuted to safety but the three other crew members, two American pilots and a Nicaraguan radio operator, were killed in the crash.
   "The objective of our flights into Nicaragua was to resupply the FDN (Nicaraguan Democratic Force) and the UNO (United Nicaraguan Opposition) teams of the Contras," he told the three-member court. The rebels are referred to as Contras.
   "Our objective of the air delivery of supplies to the Contras was to keep them resupplied so they could keep up their resistance against the Sandinista government," Hasenfus said.
   He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years if convicted of terrorism, violating the maintenance of order and public security, and conspiracy.
   In response to questions by Sotelo Borgen, Hasenfus said he had no role in deciding where the planes would fly or what cargoes they would carry. He also said he had never been politically active in the United States.
   Earlier, Hasenfus made a lengthy statement to the court, speaking of his service in the Marines, the marriage to his wife Sally, the raising of their three children and his final flight into Nicaragua.
   He said he had been unemployed most of the time in 1984-86. But last July he said he received a telephone call from William Cooper, one of the pilots killed in the crash of the C-123. Hasenfus said he had worked with Cooper in Southeast Asia, and Cooper offered him a job with Corporate Air Services, an affiliate of Southern Air Transport of Miami, Fla.
   "My unemployment compensation, all of my benefits, had run out at this time, so when William Cooper called with this offer of work, I accepted," Hasenfus told the court.
   Responding to a question by the prosecution question, Hasenfus said, "William Cooper, as far as I know, worked for Southern Air Transport, for Corporate Air Services, for the organization that ran it."
   "Who is 'it?' " asked the prosecutor.
   "I cannot say who the big boss was," Hasenfus replied through an interpreter.
   Listening to his testimony from the specators' section were his wife and two former U.S. attorneys general, Griffin Bell and Ramsey Clark.
   Bell who is assisting the defense, said the tribunal had rejected a defense plan to present a statement by Hasenfus' wife. Bell had said Monday that Hasenfus "has thrown himself on the mercy of the court."
   Tuesday morning, Hasenfus, Sotelo Borgen, the president of the three-man tribunal and the assistant prosecutor viewed a videotape of an interview with the defendant broadcast on the CBS television program "60 Minutes."
   The interview was shown in Managua with a Spanish translation Oct. 19, the same day it was broadcast. It had been taped the day before.
   In the interview conducted by correspondent Mike Wallace, Hasenfus acknowledged being recruited as a cargo handler to help run supplies to the rebels.
   He said he was not sure who ran the rebel supply operation based in El Salvador, but believed he was working for the CIA.
   Hasenfus provided no real evidence that the CIA or other U.S. government agencies directed the clandestine supply flights from the Ilopango air base just outside San Salvador.
   In an appearance earlier this week, Hasenfus told the tribunal any previous statements he made about CIA involvement in the operation were based on hearsay, not direct personal knowledge.
   Bell arrived at the tribunal Tuesday morning with Sotelo Borgen but was not permitted to view the videotape. Reporters also were barred.
   Thelma Salinas, a court spokeswoman, said the audience was Hasenfus, Sotelo Borgen and Reynaldo Monterrey, a lawyer who is president of the tribunal. The assistant prosecutor, Ivan Villavicencio, told reporters as he left that he also watched the tape.
   "Both sides, the defense and the prosecution, asked that this be done in private," Ms. Salinas said, adding that the videotape was presented as evidence but the tribunal president would rule later on whether to accept it.
   Sotelo Borgen told reporters as he left the tribunal offices that he objected to some translations of Hasenfus' statements but Monterrey refused to declare them inaccurate. Sotelo Borgen would not discuss the proceedings further.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 6 1986
^PM-Hasenfus
^Lawyer Says Hasenfus Hopes to Gain Tribunal's Sympathy
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The defense submitted written statements from Eugene Hasenfus and his wife in another attempt to win the sympathy of the three-member People's Court trying him for terrorism, former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell said.
   Hasenfus' statement was prepared with his defense lawyers, who had hoped to have him read it to the court. The court refused and the defendant spoke without notes, in what Bell said Wednesday was probably a less emotional appeal.
   "His demeanor seemed to me to be very low key, and that's why we wanted him to read a statement," Bell said.
   "He doesn't seem to emote a great deal," Bell said. "The only thing lacking was a lot of emotion on the part of the defendant, and if he could have read the statement, that would have been there."
   The court also refused on Tuesday to let the defense present statements by Hasenfus' wife Sally.
   There was no immediate indication of whether the statements were accepted into evidence after Nicaraguan defense attorney Enrique Sotelo Borgen resubmitted them on Wednesday.
   Asked what he hoped to gain by having Mrs. Hasenfus read a statement to the court, Bell replied, "Sympathy. Again, asking for mercy. I think it would be helpful to have his wife testify."
   In his comments Tuesday, the defendant told the court about his childhood, military service in the Marines, life with his wife Sally and their three children and his final flight into Nicaragua.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was the only survivor of a C-123 cargo plane shot down over southern Nicaragua on Oct. 5. The American pilot and co- pilot and a Nicaraguan radioman died in the crash.
   Hasenfus told the court Tuesday, and has said on other occasions, that he was a cargo handler on a flight carrying small arms and ammunition to U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels.
   He could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted of the charges of terrorism, conspiracy and other crimes against the state.
   Court spokeswoman Thelma Salinas said Wednesday that she expected a prosecution request to be granted for a four-day extension of the eight-day period for presenting evidence, due to expire today.
   Bell, of Atlanta, is prohibited by Nicaraguan law from talking with Hasenfus or taking an active part in his defense. He is acting as an adviser to Sotelo Borgen.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 8 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Cities
^Michigan Group Opens Sister City Program
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   JUIGALAPA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Members of a Michigan delegation brought bandages and solidarity with them to this impoverished provincial town, saying they want to offset the damage brought by the war against U.S.-financed Contra rebels.
   The group from Ann Arbor delivered a dozen boxes of bandages, antibiotics, syringes and other supplies to the regional director of the Sandinista Health Ministry, Carlos Jarquin, at the Manolo Morales Health Center here.
   Michigan state Rep. Perry Bullard, an Ann Arbor Democrat, said the mission to Juigalpa was intended as much to protest President Reagan's policies toward Nicaragua as it was to bring supplies.
   Bullard said he joined the delegation to "undo the damage the U.S. government is doing by attacking Nicaragua in an illegal war."
   "Because of what we learned from Vietnam, we are going to do all we can to keep from becoming involved in another unjust war," said Bullard, who said he was a Vietnam veteran.
   Juigalpa was chosen as Ann Arbor's sister city after voters there in April approved an initiative condemning U.S. policy in Central America and establishing a sister city relationship with one or more Central American communities.
   Leroy Capparet, who helped organize the project, said the group brought about 1,000 pounds of donated hospital and school supplies to Juigalpa, located in mountains about 65 miles east of the capital of Managua. The delegation of about a dozen people planned to return home Monday.
   "We thank you for this gesture of solidarity from the people of Ann Arbor," Jarquin said on receiving the goods Thursday. "This shows clearly that what the American people are doing is different from what the American government is doing."
   The U.S. government recently voted $100 million in mostly military aid to help the Contra rebels overthrow Nicaragua's leftist government.
   But the Ann Arbor delegation, Jarquin said, "is sending things to benefit the health of our people and to educate them."
   He added that he hoped others from the United States would "invade us with your help, your love and your brotherhood."
   Another delegation member, high school teacher and former city councilwoman Joyce Chesbrough, also mentioned the U.S. war in Southeast Asia as she explained her reason for coming to Nicaragua.
   "Vietnam destroyed the belief that what the government says should be accepted at face value," she said. "In a democracy, it is important to go see for yourself."
   She said she wanted to see if the leftist Sandinista government really is "the big enemy" that Reagan has claimed, a Soviet military pawn intent on exporting leftist revolution to neighboring countries.
   Ms. Chesbrough, who identified herself as a Republican, said Nicaragua seemed "like any Third World country, in that their lives are precarious and resources are so scarce that it is important they be spent for the health and welfare of the people."
   Sandinista officials have said that about 60 percent of the national budget is spent on the military for its war with the Contras, which started in 1981. The amount of the national budget has not been revealed.
   Ann Arbor Mayor Edward Pierce, 56, a physician, later toured the Camilo Ortega Saavedra Hospital in another part of Juigalpa and greeted wounded Sandinista soldiers.
   The hospital was named for a brother of President Daniel Ortega who was killed during the Sandinista uprising that ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 8 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Celebrate
^Ortega Tells Sandinista Crowd That Contra Planes Will Be Shot Down
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega vowed on Saturday, before thousands of Nicaraguans celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, that planes flying supplies to Contra rebels would be shot down.
   The celebration also marked the 10th anniversary of the death of Carlos Fonseca, founder of the Front. Fonseca and a few revolutionaries armed with pistols and single-shot rifles began the insurrection that led to the 1979 ouster of Somoza dynasty that had ruled since the 1930s.
   A large billboard near Fonseca Plaza, where Ortega spoke, showed a Sandinista soldier capturing American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus. A slogan read, "The blonde invader has bitten the dust."
   Hasenfus, now on trial before a People's Tribunal, was captured after his C-123 cargo plane was shot down Oct. 5 while carrying supplies to the Contras.
   After Ortega's speech, the crowd cheered a military parade of 5,000 soldiers and Soviet-bloc weapons.
   Observers saw no new weapons in the parade, which lasted one hour, 15 minutes. There have been rumors the Sandinistas acquired Soviet T-62 tanks and SAM-3 ground-to air missiles capable of knocking down jets.
   Instead, the parade included 54 of the older Soviet-designed T-54 and T-55 tanks, 13 armored reconnaissance vehicles, 12 amphibious armored personnel carriers, and various anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.
   During his 50-minute speech, Ortega blamed the CIA for Hasenfus flight and said, "We will keep shooting down the planes of the CIA with anti-aircraft weapons in the hands of the people."
   The Sandinista leader, wearing a short-sleeved military uniform, compared the CIA to drug traffickers. "Today, they are the biggest traffickers of narcotics, taking the drug of terrorism to Angola, Grenada and Nicaragua," he said.
   "The narcotics traffickers are characterized by having airplanes whose clandestine origins they hide. It is the CIA which buys airplanes through a third party and traffics in death against Nicaragua," Ortega said.
   Earlier Saturday, an honor guard placed a wreath at Fonseca's mausoleum as a gentle breeze stirred the eternal flame burning over the tomb in Revolutionary Plaza.
   Crowds started gathering in downtown Managua early in the day. The government radio estimated the turnout at 50,000.
   Dignitaries from the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc nations and guerrillas from Colombia, El Salvador and the Palestine Liberation Organization were among hundreds of guests attending the ceremonies.
   Among delegations from the United States were three Vietnam War veterans who recently completed a fast on the steps of the Capitol in Washington to protest President Reagan's anti-Sandinista policies.
   One of the veterans, Brian Wilson, wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap, told the crowd in a brief speech the United States was conducting "an illegal, immoral and irrational war against your nation."
   He said, "We smell, taste and feel another Vietnam, and how well we know that that evil war was born by a lie and perpetuated by lies, just as this war is also."
   Since coming to power, the Sandinistas have presided over a nation in economic disaster. They are fighting a war by Contra rebels who want to oust the government and are backed by $100 million in aid from the United States.
   The Reagan administration says Nicaragua is trying to export revolution to other Central American nations.
   About 60 percent of Nicaragua's budget is earmarked for defense, mainly to support a military force of 100,000 soldiers, reservists and militia - the largest fighting force in Central America.
   Managua, whose downtown area was destroyed in an earthquake in 1972 and never rebuilt, was spruced up for the celebration. City workers repainted curbsides and crosswalks and hung banners bearing the colors of the blue-and- white Nicaraguan and red-and-black Sandinista flags.
   The Sandinista National Liberation Front was founded on July 23, 1961, by Fonseca and two followers - Silvio Mayorga and Tomas Borge - at a meeting in Honduras. But because July also is when the government celebrates the overthrow of the Somoza family, the ceremony was postponed until now.
   Fonseca, the intellectual force behind the front, had a special fascination with Augusto C. Sandino, who in the 1930s fought a guerrilla war in northern Nicaragua against U.S. Marines occupying the country.
   Because of that, the movement incorporated into its name the word Sandinista, which in Spanish means "follower of Sandino." The image of the little man with a big hat became a symbol that still dots the nation, from banners hanging on utility poles in the capital to the mountainsides in the country.
   Fonseca, who suffered from poor eyesight and who liked books by American writers John Steinbeck and Jack London, went into the jungle to live as a guerrilla after some Sandinistas complained he lacked combat experience. It was there that he was killed in 1976.
   Mayorga was killed along with most of his guerrilla band in a battle in August 1967. Borge survived to become interior minister and is regarded as the leading hardliner among the Sandinista rulers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 10 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Both Sides Rest Cases In Hasenfus Trial
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Prosecution and defense lawyers rested their cases in the terrorism trial of American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus on Monday, the final day for submitting evidence.
   The People's Tribunal of a lawyer, truck driver and laborer will have three days beginning Tuesday to reach a verdict, tribunal spokeswoman Thelma Salinas said.
   Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes, the prosecutor, said sentence probably would be pronounced the same day if the verdict is guilty. Hasenfus, 45, could get 30 years in prison on conviction of the charges of terrorism, conspiracy and violating Nicaragua's security.
   The resident of Marinette, Wis., was the cargo handler on a C-123 transport plane that was shot down in southern Nicaragua Oct. 5 while carrying supplies to rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government. He was captured the next day.
   Reyes and defense attorney Enrique Sotelo Borgen said they had no plans to present more evidence.
   Tribunal president Reynaldo Monterrey, a lawyer, went to the crash site by helicopter Sunday with Hasenfus and a group of reporters. The trip to El Tule, 140 miles southeast of Managua, was made so an expert in aviation mechanics who is a prosecution witness could see the plane's wreckage.
   Hasenfus, wearing handcuffs, also looked at the wreckage and was asked by Monterrey if it was his plane. "It appears to be. It used to look much different," Hasenfus said with a slight smile.
   Also making the trip were three U.S. Vietnam veterans who recently protested on the steps of the Capitol in Washington against U.S. policy in Central America. The United States backs the Nicaraguan Contra rebels fighting the Sandinista government.
   Brian Wilson, Duncan Murphy and George Mizo were guests of the Nicaraguan government at a celebration Saturday of the 25th anniversary of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front.
   Reporters were not allowed to question Hasenfus.
   Sotelo Borgen complained Monday that he was excluded from the trip. The tribunal sent a notice to the lawyer's office Saturday notifying him of it, but he said he did not get it because he did not visit the office over the weekend.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 12 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Prosecution Says Hasenfus Part of U.S. Domination Plan
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Prosecutors on Wednesday asked the People's Tribunal trying American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus to sentence him to the maximum 30 years in prison for aiding Nicaraguan rebels.
   Assistant prosecutor Ivan Villavicencio made the request in written final arguments to the tribunal of a lawyer, truck driver and laborer. He said the 45-year-old American's guilt was "plainly demonstrated" by his statements to the tribunal and government officials.
   Hasenfus met for about 90 minutes Wednesday afternoon with his wife, Sally, his brother, William, and defense lawyer Enrique Sotelo Borgen.
   Mrs. Hasenfus emerged from the meeting in the tribunal office and, squinting in the glare of TV lights, said of her husband: "He's a good man. Please let him come home."
   Soldiers escorted Hasenfus from the building to a waiting police wagon, and he made no comment.
   Sotelo Borgen and Villavicencio both said they expected a verdict to be announced Friday or possibly Monday.
   An army patrol captured Hasenfus, of Marinette, Wis., on Oct. 6, the day after the C-123 aircraft on which he was cargo handler was shot down over southern Nicaragua. It was carrying supplies to U.S.-backed rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government.
   He is charged with terrorism, conspiracy and other crimes against the state.
   The tribunal finished taking testimony last week. On Sunday, tribunal president Reynaldo Monterrey, a lawyer, flew to the crash site with Hasenfus, government officials and reporters.
   Villavicencio said in his six-page statement that Hasenfus and three crew members killed in the crash provided "indispensible (aid to the rebels) so they could carry out their acts to submit our nation to foreign domination, like that of the United States of America."
   He said documents given the court show Hasenfus was a U.S. military adviser in El Salvador. The American has denied having ties with the U.S. government.
   He did say, however, that supply flights originated at the Ilapongo military air base outside San Salvador, El Salvador, and prosecutors produced a card they said gave him access to the base.
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Nov 13 1986
^PM-Hasenfus
^Hasenfus Said to Be In Good Spirits
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Prosecutors told a revolutionary tribunal that Eugene Hasenfus' guilt was "plainly demonstrated" and asked that the American mercenary be given the maximum 30-year prison sentence for aiding Nicaraguan rebels.
   A three-day period for deliberation by the People's Tribunal trying the case expires this afternoon. Lawyers on both sides of the case said they expected the verdict to be announced Friday or possibly Monday.
   Assistant prosecutor Ivan Villavicencio made the sentence request in written final arguments Wednesday to the tribunal made up of a lawyer, truck driver and laborer.
   He said documents given the court show that Hasenfus, who is charged with terrorism, conspiracy and other crimes against the state, was a U.S. military adviser in El Salvador. The 45-year-old defendant has denied having ties with the U.S. government, and Washington has denied any link to him.
   An army patrol captured Hasenfus, of Marinette, Wis., on Oct. 6, the day after the C-123 aircraft on which he was cargo handler was shot down over southern Nicaragua. It was carrying supplies to U.S.-backed rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government.
   Villavicencio, in his six-page closing statement, said Hasenfus and the three crew members killed in the crash, provided "indispensible (aid to the rebels) so they could carry out their acts to submit our nation to foreign domination, like that of the United States of America.
   He said the American's guilt was "plainly demonstrated" by his statements to the tribunal and government officials.
   Hasenfus talked for about 90 minutes Wednesday afternoon with his Nicaraguan lawyer Enrique Sotelo Borgen at the tribunal offices. It was their first meeting since Nov. 4, when Hasenfus last appeared before the tribunal.
   The lawyer said Hasenfus told him he was "in very good spirits" and was being treated well. Hasenfus is being held at a maximum security prison in the town of Tipitapa, just east of Managua.
   Sotelo Borgen said they discussed the possibility of an appeal if Hasenfus is found guilty, and what sentence they expect. He did not elaborate.
   Also at the meeting were Hasenfus' wife, Sally, and brother, William. Mrs. Hasenfus emerged from the meeting and, squinting in the glare of TV lights, said of her husband: "He's a good man. Please let him come home."
   Soldiers escorted Hasenfus from the building to a waiting police wagon, and he made no comment.
   The tribunal finished taking testimony last week. On Sunday, tribunal president Reynaldo Monterrey, a lawyer, flew to the crash site with Hasenfus, government officials and reporters.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 13 11986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus
^Lawyer Says Hasenfus May Be Guilty of Terrorism Charge
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The lawyer for captured American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus said Thursday that his client should be sentenced to no more than two years in prison if he is found guilty.
   Prosecutors have asked the People's Tribunal to impose a 30-year sentence on Hasenfus. The tribunal, composed of a lawyer, truck driver and laborer, went into a third day of deliberations Thursday and was expected to return a verdict this week.
   "I believe that at most, the only crime that he could have committed is the one of terrorism (because he) transported arms," defense lawyer Enrique Sotelo Borgen told The Associated Press. He said the sentence for that ranges from six months to two years.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 6 after Sandinista soldiers shot down his C-123 cargo plane filled with supplies and weapons for Contra rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government. Since then, he has been kept in a prison outside Managua.
   Hasenfus testified before the tribunal last week that he was a cargo handler aboard the aircraft and that it was carrying weapons destined for the Contras. The United States backs the rebels and recently approved $100 million in aid to them.
   He also is charged with violating the public order and security, which carries a maximum 30-year penalty, and with criminal association, which carries a maximum three-year penalty.
   Sotelo Borgen said he was submitting written final arguments to the tribunal arguing that it lacked authority to hear the case against Hasenfus. He made the same argument at the beginning of the trial.
   The lawyer said his arguments would "affirm that the trial is null and that the tribunal is incompetent to try the case, because it was created to judge Nicaraguans and not foreigners."
   The People's Tribunals were established in 1983 to try those accused of counter-revolutionary activities.
   Assistant prosecutor Ivan Villavincencio said in his final arguments submitted Wednesday that Hasenfus and three fellow crewmen killed when the plane was downed had given indispensible aid to the Contras "so they could carry out their acts to submit our nation to foreign domination, like that of the United States of America."
   The prosecution also alleged it was Hasenfus' responsibility to operate a machine gun found in the plane's wreckage. Hasenfus testified before the tribunal the gun was kept at the rear of the airplane for use by the radio operator.
   If found guilty, Hasenfus can appeal to another court within the tribunal system, but Sotelo Borgen said the appeals court occasionally imposes an even stiffer sentence.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 14 1986
^PM-Hasenfus
^Lawyer Says Hasenfus May Be Guilty on One Charge
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The lawyer for American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus says his client may be guilty of one of the three charges brought against him by Nicaragua for aiding anti-government rebels.
   A three-day period for deliberations by the People's Tribunal trying Hasenfus expired Thursday afternoon and there was no announcement that the three-member panel had decided to extend the deliberations.
   Defense lawyer Enrique Sotelo Borgen and assistant prosecutor Ivan Villavicencio said earlier in the week they expected a verdict today or Monday. Sentence is usually announced the same day.
   Prosecutors have asked the People's Tribunal to impose the maximum 30-year sentence on Hasenfus, who is charged with terrorism, conspiracy and violating public security. He could appeal a guilty verdict to another court within the tribunal system, but Sotelo Borgen said the appeals court occasionally imposes an even stiffer sentence.
   "I believe that at most, the only crime that he could have committed is the one of terrorism (because he) transported arms," defense lawyer Enrique Sotelo Borgen told The Associated Press. He said the sentence for that ranges from six months to two years.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 6 after Sandinista soldiers shot down his C-123 cargo plane filled with supplies and weapons for Contra rebels fighting the leftist Nicaraguan government. Since then, he has been kept in a prison outside Managua.
   Hasenfus testified before the tribunal that he was a cargo handler aboard the aircraft and that it was carrying weapons destined for the Contras. The United States recently approved $100 million in aid to the rebels.
   In written final arguments submitted Thursday, Sotelo Borgen argued that Hasenfus, as a foreigner, did not fall under the tribunal's jurisdiction so that "all that has been done since he was accused is absolutely null."
   The statement said the defense would not bother to rebut evidence presented by the prosecution because "that activity would lack any importance and would have no practical purpose."
   The People's Tribunals were established in 1983 to try those accused of counter-revolutionary activities.
   Villavincencio said in his final arguments submitted Wednesday that Hasenfus and three fellow crewmen killed when the plane was downed had given indispensible aid to the Contras "so they could carry out their acts to submit our nation to foreign domination, like that of the United States of America."
   The prosecution also alleged it was Hasenfus' responsibility to operate a machine gun found in the plane's wreckage. Hasenfus testified before the tribunal the gun was kept at the rear of the airplane for use by the radio operator.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 15 1986
^PM-Hasenfus<
^URGENT
Court Convicts Hasenfus<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A Sandinista tribunal today convicted U.S. mercenary Eugene Hasenfus of terrorism and other crimes against the state for his role in a weapons supply flight to Contra rebels. It sentenced him to the maximum penalty, 30 years in prison.
   Hasenfus was brought from his prison cell to the courtroom of the three- member People's Tribunal to hear the verdict.
   The 45-year-old former Marine from Marinette, Wis., became the first American taken prisoner by Nicaragua in its war with U.S.-backed Contra rebels when he was captured Oct. 6 in the jungles of southern Nicaragua.
   Hasenfus was the cargo handler on a C-123 military transport plane shot down the previous day by Sandinista troops. The plane was ferrying supplies to the Contras. The three other crewmen, including two Americans, were killed in the crash but Hasenfus parachuted to safety.
   Attorney Reynaldo Monterrey, the president of the tribunal, announced Friday afternoon that a verdict had been reached but said its reading was being delayed until today because "it has not been translated (from Spanish into English) and the document is lengthy."
   Hasenfus was charged with terrorism, punishable by six months to two years in prison; criminal conspiracy, with a possible sentence of one to three years; and violating the maintenance of Nicaragua's order and public security, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
   Assistant prosecutor Ivan Villavicencio said late Friday he was confident that "we have presented sufficient and abundant proof to (support) the strongest of the charges. We expect a condemnatory verdict from the tribunal and a sentence of 30 years in prison."
   Defense lawyer Enrique Sotelo Borgen also had predicted a guilty verdict on all three charges and a 30-year sentence but said in an interview such a sentence "would be monstrous. It will show only the brutality of the tribunals and the pressure that the Sandinista media have exercised against Hasenfus."
   In final written arguments presented earlier this week, prosecutors asked the court for the maximum sentence. Sotelo Borgen had said the most his client should receive was two years on the terrorism charge.
   Sotelo Borgen also argued in his final statement, as he did at the trial, that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction because it was established in 1983 to hear cases against Nicaraguans charged with counterrevolutionary activities.
   President Daniel Ortega hinted early in the trial that Hasenfus might be pardoned if found guilty.
   The guilty verdict may be appealed to another court in the People's Tribunal system, but Sotelo Borgen said Thursday that the appeals panel sometimes imposes stiffer sentences than the lower courts.
   Reagan administration officials denied direct involvement in the supply operation, but testimony by Hasenfus and documents found in the plane's wreckage indicated at least tacit approval of the supply operation by El Salvador and Honduras, both U.S. allies.
   Hasenfus testified that the supply planes were loaded from a warehouse at Ilopango military air base outside San Salvador. An identification card issued by the Salvadoran air force in the defendant's name that gave him access to the Ilopango military air base was part of the evidence introduced against him.
   Hasenfus, who said he took the job because he was unemployed, testified that the Corporate Air Service company paid him $3,000 a month plus a $750 bonus for each mission over Nicaragua. He said he made 10 trips, dropping supplies to rebels in Nicaragua or flying to the U.S.-built Aguacate air base in Honduras.
   Griffin Bell of Atlanta, a former U.S. attorney general, was hired for the American's defense, but the government said only a Nicaraguan could represent him before the tribunal and Bell could be only an adviser.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 15 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Hasenfus Sentenced to 30 Years
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus was sentenced Saturday to the maximum penalty of 30 years in prison by a three-member People's Tribunal that convicted him of terrorism and crimes against the state.
   Hasenfus was captured last month when the plane on which he was the cargo handler was shot down in southern Nicaragua. He said the plane was flying weapons to U.S.-backed Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua's leftist government.
   "We condemn the defendant, Eugene Hasenfus Haines, to the maximum penalty of 30 years in prison" for violating the maintenance of order and public security and for terrorism, said the tribunal president, Reynaldo Monterrey, who is a lawyer. The tribunal also sentenced Hasenfus to the maximum of three years in prison for criminal association, with the sentences to be served concurrently.
   Terrorism carries a maximum penalty of up to two years in prison, but the sentence was combined with that for violating the maintenance of order and public security.
   "The crimes are plainly proven," Monterrey said.
   He added that under Nicaraguan law, the maximum time Hasenfus will have to serve in prison is 30 years. Nicaragua does not have capital punishment.
   President Daniel Ortega, asked last month by a U.S. television interviewer if Hasenfus might be home for Christmas, said anything was possible, but he did not commit himself to a possible pardon.
   There was no immediate statement from Ortega on the verdict, but in a speech delivered before the sentence was announced, he said, "The American public should understand that the consequence of the politics of (President) Reagan will be the death of American youth in Nicaragua."
   Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes, the chief prosecutor in the case, told AP after the sentencing that he saw no reason why Hasenfus should be pardoned.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was present when the sentence was read.
   The proceedings were broadcast on government radio.
   Monterrey said Hasenfus knew he "was supplying arms to counter- revolutionary  groups."
   "He did the crime voluntarily," he added. "He was in charge of throwing out the arms to counter-revolutionaries who operate in the interior of Nicaragua."
   Both the prosecution and defense said before the verdict was announced that they expected Hasenfus to be convicted and given the maximum sentence.
   Shortly after the verdict was read, U.S. Embassy press attache Alberto Fernandez, reading a prepared statement, said: "The Nicaraguan government orchestrated a show trial. His conviction thus comes as little surprise."
   In Washington, a White House spokesman, Donald Mathes, said, "We're not surprised. The outcome was decided before the trial even started. It served no purpose other than to make propaganda."
   State Department spokesman Pete Martinez said in Washington that Nicaragua convicted Hasenfus "with a maximum of publicity."
   "The Nicaraguan government's treatment of Mr. Hansenfus violated many of his basic due process rights under both international and Nicaraguan law," Martinez said.
   Hasenfus' sister, Donna, said at the family home in Marinette: "We thought we were all adjusted to the fact that he would be found guilty and would be sentenced, but the fact that there was no mention of a pardon has been a disappointment."
   In a tearful statement at the International Press Club in Managua, Hasenfus' wife, Sally, told reporters, "Gene realizes that in accepting his job, he made a terrible mistake, a mistake for which we have all paid dearly.
   "I would hope the sentence would be followed by a humanitarian gesture from the government."
   She added: "I have only gratitude and love in my heart for the people of Nicaragua, who have treated me with kindness and courtesy rather than the hostility that circumstances would have warranted."
   Hasenfus' brother, William, also attended the news conference but declined to say anything.
   Hasenfus' attorney, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, told The Associated Press after the sentencing that he did not know if he would appeal the verdict. He said the maximum sentence was "customary."
   Hasenfus, dressed in a white shirt, blue trousers and white tennis shoes, was present as the verdict was read in Spanish. He speaks little Spanish and showed no reaction to the sentence.
   The tribunal then ordered that the verdict, which took about an hour to deliver, be read to him in English. Hasenfus then told the judge he wanted to appeal.
   The trial began Oct. 22, and in written final arguments, Reyes asked for the maximum sentences.
   Sotelo Borgen had said his client should receive no more than the two-year sentence for terrorism. He argued the court lacked jurisdiction in the case because it was established to hear cases against Nicaraguans charged with counterrevolutionary activities.
   In a statement to the court during the trial, Hasenfus said if convicted, he would ask the tribunal to show compassion and let him go home.
   Hasenfus was captured Oct. 6, one day after Sandinista troops firing a Soviet-made surface-to-air missile shot down his C-123 plane. He parachuted from the burning aircraft, which he said was carrying small arms and ammunition to the rebels. Three other crewmen - two American pilots and a Nicaraguan radio operartor - perished in the crash.
   Hasenfus was the first American captured by Sandinista forces in the war against the Contras.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 6 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Lawyer Says Hasenfus Believed He Worked For White House
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Eugene Hasenfus, the American mercenary serving a 30-year sentence for helping deliver arms to Nicaraguan rebels, believed he was working under orders from the White House, an American lawyer said Saturday.
   Hasenfus spoke Friday night in the Tipitapa Prison, five miles east of Managua, with four representatives of the U.S. National Lawyers Guild.
   One of the four, Andy Silverman, a professor of law at the University of Arizona in Tucson, told a news conference Saturday that Hasenfus had expected the U.S. government to speak up for him during his trial.
   Silverman quoted Hasenfus as saying: "I was not told I was working out of the White House point-blank, but I knew it."
   Hasenfus, who worked for the private firm Corporate Air Services, said he did not know if the program to ship arms to the rebels was connected with the secret U.S. arms sales to Iran, Silverman said. The White House has confirmed that some money from the Iran sales was diverted to the Nicaraguan rebels.
   "I felt the funds (for the arms) were coming from some slush fund," Silverman quoted Hasenfus as saying. "The United States government has such slush funds for these purposes."
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wisc., was captured Oct. 6, one day after the plane on which he was cargo handler was shot down by Nicaraguan soldiers as it attempted to drop arms to the U.S.-backed rebels. He parachuted to safety but the two American pilots and Nicaraguan radio operator died in the crash.
   A revolutionary tribunal convicted Hasenfus on Nov. 15 and sentenced him to 30 years imprisonment.
   Silverman said Hasenfus "pleaded not to be forgotten by the North American people."
   The lawyer quoted Hasenfus as saying he was well treated, but complained he is kept apart from most other prisoners and eats in the cell he shares with a man named Luther.
   Hasenfus said they have a television set and their own bathroom. He did not further identify Luther, except that he speaks some English and also is serving a 30-year sentence.
   The 10-member Lawyers Guild delegation came to Nicaragua to study the leftist Sandinista government' legal process.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 8 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Honduras-Scene
^Sandinistas Claim Jets Raided Border Town With AM-Nicaragua-Honduras
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   WIWILI, Nicaragua (AP) _ Jet fighters raided this town near the Honduran border in an apparent attempt to destroy two air force troop transport helicopters parked along the airstrip, a military official said Monday.
   Col. Xavier Carrion, the second-in-command of the Sandinista army general command, told reporters the planes made four bombing runs Sunday but the Soviet-made choppers were not touched. He said there were two planes in each run.
   Carrion claimed the attack was directed by the United States, but said he did not know who was flying the fighters or what type of aircraft they were. Honduran officials denied their fighters had attacked Nicaraguan villages.
   The leftist Sandinista government claimed seven soldiers were killed and 12 people wounded in air raids here and on an army post at Murra, which is 11 miles northeast of here.
   Sandinista military officials took journalists on a tour of Wiwili, which is about 16 miles from the Honduran border and 100 miles north of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua. It has a population of about 15,000.
   Carrion quoted Sandinista intelligence sources as saying, "This (bombing) operation was organized in the American air base in Honduras (called) Palmerola."
   About 1,000 U.S. troops are stationed at Palmerola air base in central Honduras, and act in a support capacity for joint U.S.-Honduras military maneuvers which have been going on in that country since 1982.
   Nicaraguan Contra rebels operate from bases in southern Honduras. The rebels, backed by the United States, are fighting the Sandinista government.
   Eugenio Castro, a spokesman for the Honduran Foreign Ministry, said, "The only planes operating are Honduran and they are attacking Sandinista troops inside Honduran territory."
   A Honduran military intelligence source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said about 20 Honduran air force planes Monday had bombed and strafed stragglers of a retreating Nicaraguan force that Honduran officers say crossed the border during the weekend.
   The Sandinista government denied that an incursion into Honduras took place.
   During the tour of Wiwili, Sandinista officials showed what they said were pieces of shrapnel from the raid. One of the twisted shards bore writing in English that said, "2.75 inch rocket motor mk mod 10."
   There were three craters, about 10 feet wide, near the airstrip, and the officials said they were caused by missiles. The nearest craters were about 200 yards from the airstrip, which was not hit.
   A family lives in a dirt-floor shack about 40 yards from the craters. Witnesses said none of the family members was injured, but that a pig outside the shack was hit by shrapnel and killed.
   Salvador Blandon, coordinator of the Sandinista defense cmmittee for Wiwili, said the attacking planes were "super-fast jets" of a dark color. He said he saw no identifying markings. He said three planes made the bombing runs.
   Some members of the local militia fired at the jets with AK-47 automatic rifles, he said.
   The reporters also were taken to a military clinic to interview seven wounded people.
   An army sergeant, Ronald Ruiz Cruz, said from his bed that the planes had camouflage painting and that he could not see identification markings.
   He said he was wounded by shrapnel in his right thigh from a bomb that fell near the airstrip.
   All the wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy, appeared to have light or superficial injuries.
   One resident, Elisa Perez, 73, said, "It makes me mad because they shot at us."
   She said, "We are told the planes belong to the helpers of the Contras - it could be Honduras or the United States."
   Carmen Livana, who stood in front of her little clothing shop, shrugged when asked about the air raid.
   "It happened over by the airstrip on the other side of town," she said. "I do not know much about it because I haven't been listening to the news much."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 9 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Bomb Site
^Sandinistas Show Reporters Around Border Town They Say Was Bombed With PM-Nicaragua-Honduras
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   WIWILI, Nicaragua (AP) _ Sandinista military men showed journalists around Wiwili, about 16 miles from the Honduran border, and pointed out craters and shrapnel they said were left from bombing runs by jets from Honduras.
   Col. Xavier Carrion, No. 2 man in the Sandinista army general command, said the attack on the town Sunday was directed by the United States, but he did not know who was piloting the planes or what type of aircraft they were.
   Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government has reported seven soldiers were killed and 12 people were wounded in air strikes on Wiwili, a town of about 15,000 people, and on an army post at Murra, 11 miles northeast of Wiwili.
   Honduran officials denied their planes attacked Nicaraguan villages.
   Sandinista officials on Monday showed reporters what they said were pieces of shrapnel from the raid. One twisted fragment bore lettering in English that read, "2.75 inch rocket motor mk mod 10."
   Three craters, about 10 feet wide, pocked an area near an airstrip, and the officials said they were caused by missiles. The nearest craters were about 200 yards from the airstrip, which was not hit.
   The reporters also were taken to a military clinic to interview seven wounded people.
   Carrion said the attacking jets made four bombing runs Sunday in an apparent attempt to destroy two Soviet-made air force troop transport helicopters parked along the airstrip. But he said the helicopters were untouched.
   The officer said there were two planes in each run.
   Carrion quoted Sandinista intelligence sources as saying, "This (bombing) operation was organized in the American air base in Honduras (called) Palmerola."
   About 1,000 U.S. troops are stationed at Palmerola air base in central Honduras, and act in a support capacity for joint U.S.-Honduras military maneuvers which have been going on in that country since 1982.
   A Honduran military intelligence source, who insisted on anonymity, said about 20 Honduran air force planes on Monday bombed and strafed stragglers of a retreating Nicaraguan force which Honduran officers say crossed the border over the weekend.
   Nicaragua denied that an incursion into Honduras took place.
   A Honduran Foreign Ministry spokesman, Eugenio Castro, said Monday, "The only planes operating are Honduran and they are attacking Sandinista troops inside Honduran territory."
   U.S.-backed Contra rebels operate from bases in southern Honduras to fight the Sandinista government inside Nicaragua.
   Wiwili is about 100 miles north of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua.
   In the military clinic, army Sgt. Ronald Ruiz Cruz told reporters from his bed on Monday that the attacking planes had camouflage painting and that he could not see identification markings.
   He said he was hit in the right thigh by a fragment from a bomb that fell near the airstrip.
   All the wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy, appeared to have slight or superficial injuries.
   About 40 yards from the craters was a dirt-floor shack, but witnesses said the family living there escaped harm, although a pig outside was hit by shrapnel and killed.
   Salvador Blandon, coordinator of the Sandinista defense committee for Wiwili, described the raiding planes as dark-colored, "super-fast jets" and said he saw no identifying markings. He said three planes made bombing runs and that some local militia members fired at the jets with AK-47 automatic rifles.
   Carmen Livana, standing in front of her small clothing store, shrugged when asked about the raid and remarked, "It happened over by the airstrip on the other side of town. I do not know much about it because I haven't been listening to the news much."
   But another resident, Elisa Perez, 73, said, "It makes me mad because they shot at us."
   "We are told the planes belong to the helpers of the Contras - it could be Honduras or the United States," she added.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 11 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus<
^URGENT Appeals Court Confirms 30-Year For Hasenfus<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A revolutionary appeals court today confirmed the guilty verdict and 30- year prison sentence imposed on American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus.
   The decision upheld the Nov. 15 decision by the three-member People's Revolutionary Tribunal convicting Hasenfus of helping to airlift weapons to U.S.-backed Contra rebels.
   "This is the definitive sentence that has been decided. The defendant Eugene Hasenfus must serve the maximum penalty of 30 years," the head of the three-member appeals court, Arwengol Cuadra Lopez, said after the ruling was read.
   The People's Revolutionary Tribunal, made up of a lawyer, a truck driver and a laborer, found Hasenfus guilty of violating public order and security, criminal association and terrorism.
   The case was automatically reviewed by the higher court, known as the Superior People's Revolutionary Tribunal. The higher court was composed of Cuadra, who is a lawyer, a carpenter and a clerk.
   The tribunal system, which is outside the regular law courts, was created by the Sandinista government to try those defendants considered counterrevolutionaries.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Mariette, Wis., was captured Oct. 6, one day after a plane ferrying weapons to the Contras was shot down by army troops in southeastern Nicaragua. He was the only survivor out of a crew of four.
   Two Americans and a Nicaraguan were killed in the crash.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 11 1986
^AM-Hasenfus
^Appeals Court Confirms 30-Year Sentence For Hasenfus
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ A revolutionary appeals court on Thursday confirmed the guilty verdict and 30-year jail sentence imposed on Eugene Hasenfus for helping to deliver arms to Contra rebels.
   "This is the definitive sentence. ... The defendant Eugene Hasenfus must serve the maximum penalty of 30 years," the head of the three-member court, Arwengol Cuadra Lopez, said after the ruling was read.
   The lower court, known as the People's Revolutionary Tribunal, found Hasenfus guilty Nov. 15 of violating public order and security, criminal association and terrorism, and sentenced him to 30 years.
   Nicaragua has no death penalty, and the maximum sentence is 30 years' imprisonment. The case was automatically reviewed by the higher court, known as the Superior People's Revolutionary Tribunal.
   The system, which is outside the regular law courts, was created by the Sandinista government after seizing power from President Anastasio Somoza, a rightist pro-American strongman, to try those considered counterrevolutionaries.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was captured Oct. 6, one day after a plane ferrying weapons to the U.S.-bakced Contras was shot down by army troops in southeastern Nicaragua. He was the only survivor from the crew of four.
   Two Americans and a Nicaraguan were killed in the crash. Hasenfus was in charge of air-dropping the arms and other supplies.
   Cuadra is a lawyer. The appeals court's other members were Roberto Solis, a carpenter, and Urania Villannueva, a health center admissions clerk.
   It took half an hour for Cuadra to read the court's ruling, and it was then translated into English for Hasenfus, who does not speak Spanish.
   Hasenfus, dressed in a beige short-sleeve shirt, faded blue jeans and white tennis shoes, listened without expression. He sat at a wooden table 20 feet long in front of the three judges.
   His wife Sally also listened quietly, sitting in an armchair about 10 feet behind him in the single-story concrete courthouse.
   Hasenfus made no comment to reporters when four soldiers escorted him into the courtroom and, later, when they escorted him out.
   Mrs. Hasenfus has been in Nicaragua through most of the trial. Speaking with reporters after Thursday's proceedings, she denied rumors that she was planning to bring their three children to Nicaragua to live.
   But she said she did not know how long she would remain here.
   Hasenfus' Nicaraguan attorney, Enrique Sotelo Borgen, said he was "not surprised" by Friday's ruling because the appeals court has not reversed a single decision of the lower revolutionary tribunals.
   Sotelo Borgen said he planned to apply for a pardon, which he called Hasenfus' only hope for an early release from jail.
   The application must be submitted to and approved by the government's Human Rights Commission, and the decision must be ratified by the legislature or by President Daniel Ortega if the legislature is not in session.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 16 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hall
^US Embassy Waits to Interview Captured Man
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega said Tuesday that Sam Nesley Hall, identified by Nicaragua as the American caught near an air base with maps stuffed in his sock, is a "mentally unbalanced person."
   He also said Hall brought explosives into the country to help U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras, fight the Sandinista government.
   Nicaragua says the man it identifies as Hall, 49, of Dayton, Ohio, was arrested Friday morning in a restricted zone near the Punta Huete air base, 13 miles northeast of Managua. Reports in the United States say he is the brother of Rep. Tony P. Hall, D-Ohio.
   In a brief meeting with reporters, Ortega said "Hall is a mentally unbalanced person, led by mentally unbalanced people who lead the North American policy against Nicaragua."
   Ortega added, "Hall admitted that he brought explosives to combat and to help the mercenaries. Also, he came to find out about our bases and our helicopters as part of the plans by United States leaders to bombard Nicaragua."
   He refused to elaborate on Hall's alleged smuggling of explosives, or provide other details.
   Nicaragua has refused repeated requests by the U.S. Embassy to send a diplomat to visit the prisoner and determine his identity. No journalists have been allowed to talk with the suspect and there was no independent verification of the Nicaraguan claims.
   In response to a question, Ortega said, "Clearly, the activities of Hall were a function of the North American government. He was working indirectly with the North American government."
   He also said the prisoner "has been working for some time with terrorist forces that commit crimes against Nicaragua and who was in Honduras and entered Nicaragua with mercenary groups carrying out terrorist activities."
   The president said Hall's case would be handled in the same manner as Eugene Hasenfus, who is serving 30 years in prison after being convicted of helping fly arms and weapons to the Contras.
   U.S.Embassy spokesman Al Laun said earlier in the day the embassy had made requests since Saturday for a representative of the consular section to be permitted to visit the prisoer. He said Nicaraguan officials had ignored the requests and refused to discuss the case with U.S. diplomats.
   "We expect direct answers, not just floating answers through the press," Laun said.
   Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Lorena Cuernavaca said the ministry was waiting for a report from the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of security, before granting access to the prisoner.
   Alma Morales, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, said Tuesday the only information she had was two days old and "I don't know what prison he is in. I don't know who is interrogating him."
   She said the ministry was taking written requests from journalists to interview the prisoner, but she gave no indication if or when permission would be granted.
   Government officials said Monday night that the man identified as Hall was being questioned at the El Chipote prison in Managua, where political prisoners are kept.
   They said he had not yet been charged and was being held under a 4-year-old law that gives security agencies wide powers of search and arrest.
   According to the government, the prisoner initially professed to be a writer but later said he belonged to a private organization called the Phoenix Battalion that conducted military intelligence work on behalf of U.S. interests.
   The Interior Ministry said he had an American passport with visas stamped for El Salvador, Israel and South Africa.
   Actions by the Sandinistas in this case are similar to those after Hasenfus was captured Oct. 6, the day after a missile downed his cargo plane in the jungles of southern Nicaragua. It was carrying ars to Nicaraguan rebels.
   U.S. Embassy officials had to wait four days for an 11-minute talk with the 45-year-old resident of Marinette, Wis.
   Hasenfus was tried and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is at the Tipitapa prison, 12 miles east of Managua, where an estimated 1,500 members of the late President Anastasio Somoza's military also are held.
   The Sandinista revolution ended 42 years of rule by the rightist, pro- American Somoza family in July 1979.
   Interior Minister Tomas Borge said the man identified as Hall had a hand- drawn map of the area around Tipitapa prison and a map of the Pacific port of Corinto, where Soviet bloc ships deliver cargo. The harbor was mined in 1983 in a campaign sponsored by the CIA.
   Lawrence E. Hussman Jr., an English professor at Wright State University, said in Dayton that Hall financed and led a small group of counter-terrorists, most of them South Africans and specialized in rescuing people kidnapped in Africa.
   Hussman said Hall paid him and another author $10,000 each to write a biography, as yet unpublished, called "Freelancer: Sam Hall Counterterrorist. "
   In Washington, Tony Hall said he knew his brother supported the Contras, but added, "I didn't know what he was doing in Nicaragua. I wasn't aware of the type of activities he's allegedly been participating in."

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 17 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Hall
^Ortega Says Hall Will Be Tried By Revolutionary Tribunal
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega said Sam Nesley Hall, identified as an American suspected of spying, will be tried by a revolutionary tribunal like the one that convicted U.S. mercenary Eugene Hasenfus.
   Meanwhile, the Sandinista government announced today that Ortega formally requested a pardon for Hasenfus, who is serving a 30-year sentence. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said earlier in a television interview there was a "50-50" chance Hasenfus would be pardoned and released in the coming days, perhaps today.
   Nicaragua has ignored a request by the U.S. Embassy that an American consul visit Hall. The embassy says it cannot confirm Hall's identity until an official sees him.
   Nicaraguan authorities have identified Hall as being 49 years old and from Dayton, Ohio. Reports in the United States say he is the brother of Rep. Tony P. Hall, D-Ohio.
   Sam Hall was arrested Friday in a restricted military area near the Punta Huete air base, 13 miles northeast of Managua, with maps stuffed in his sock, according to Nicaraguan officials.
   Ortega described Hall as a "mentally unbalanced person" and claimed he brought explosives into the country to help U.S.-backed Contra rebels in their fight against the leftist Sandinista government.
   It "would be normal procedure" to turn him over to a revolutionary tribunal, Ortega told reporters Tuesday. "The tribunals are for terrorists. He was conducting terrorist activities in this country."
   The tribunals were created by the Sandinistas soon after they overthrew President Anastasio Somoza, a rightist pro-American strongman, in 1979. The tribunals tried Somoza supporters accused of human rights violations, and later the Contras.
   Hall is being held at a Managua prison for political prisoners under a national emergency law, but has not been formally charged. The law, imposed four years ago by the Sandinistas to fight the Contras, gives security agencies wide powers to search, arrest and hold people.
   Dodd, who met with Ortega on Tuesday, said he and Tony Hall would be allowed to visit the prisoner. Dodd said he talked by telephone with the Ohio congressman and asked whether he had a message for the prisoner. Dodd did not elaborate.
   There was no indication Tony Hall had immediate plans to travel to Nicaragua.
   Dodd on Tuesday was allowed to visit Hasenfus who is serving a 30-year sentence for running weapons to the Contras. Dodd said he believed there was a "50-50" chance the Sandinistas would release Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., and allow him to return home.
   Dodd, in an interview from Managua with NBC's "Today" show, said he believes the Nicaraguans would like to see Hasenfus testify in Washington about arms supplies to the Contra rebels. The Contras reportedly received some of the proceeds from the Reagan administration's sale of U.S. arms to Iran.
   Referring to the new Senate committee established to investigate the Iran- Contras controversy, Dodd also said that "after having talked with Mr. Hasenfus, I believe he could be an important witness for the special committee. I think the special prosecutor may want to talk to him, and certainly the intelligence committees."
   He added: "Certainly the Nicaraguans, for their own reasons, are going to see that as important."
   Dodd, in an interview on the CBS Morning News, said about Hasenfus: "I believe the chances are 50-50 that he'll either be able to leave today or in the next few days."
   The senator, a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, is on the last leg of a private fact-finding tour of Central America.
   Ortega refused to provide details on the accusations that Hall smuggled explosives, but he said Hall also came "to find out about our bases and our helicopters as part of the plans by United States leaders to bombard Nicaragua."
   Ortega claimed that Hall "has been working for some time with terrorist forces that commit crimes against Nicaragua and who was in Honduras and entered Nicaragua with mercenary groups carrying out terrorist activities."
   Government officials said Hall at first claimed that he was a writer but later admitted to being a member of private organization called the Phoenix Battalion that conducted military intelligence work on behalf of U.S. interests.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 17 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Dodd<
^URGENT Nicaragua Pardons Hasenfus<
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The National Assembly pardoned jailed American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus today, paving the way for him to leave the country after serving about a month of a 30-year prison term.
   The assembly, which is controlled by President Daniel Ortega's leftist Sandinistas, voted 70-4 to approve Ortega's request to pardon Hasenfus for his role in supplying arms to Contra rebels.
   It said the pardon would take effect as soon as it was transmitted by any of Nicaragua's official media, and it was immediately read by the Voice of Nicaragua radio.
   Ortega said earlier that Hasenfus was likely to leave the country within hours.
   Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who met with Ortega on Tuesday, will accompany Hasenfus, the president said at a news conference.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his part in running arms to Contra rebels. He was arrested Oct. 6, one day after his aircraft carrying weapons to the Contra rebels was shot down by Nicaraguan soldiers, and later was convicted by a revolutionary tribunal.
   A communique read over the government Voice of Nicaragua radio station by Ortega's press secretary, Manuel Espinoza, said the president's pardon request to the National Assembly was made to show the American people that "Nicaragua wants peace."
   Espinoza said Ortega received a request from the government's National Human Rights Commission to free Hasenfus, who is serving his sentence at Tipitapa Prison outside Managua.
   "Following conversations last night between President Daniel Ortega and Sen. Christopher Dodd, it was agreed to make effective this gesture as soon as possible consistent with the laws of Nicaragua," Espinoza said.
   The presidential spokesman said Ortega told several American leaders "that he did not discount the possibility of pardoning him as a characteristic humanitarian gesture of the Sandinista people's revolution that is always firm but also always generous and in a message to the people of the United States that Nicaragua wants peace.
   "It also is a recognition of the struggle of broad religious, political and social sectors of the United States in favor of peace, the end of the war and a normalization of relations between the United States and Nicaragua and because those same things always are governed by the demands of international law," Espinoza said.
   Dodd met Tuesday with Ortega and other officials and discussed the question of Hasenfus' future.
   "I raised the question about whether or not Mr. Hasenfus could leave," Dodd told the NBC "Today" show in an interview from the Nicaraguan capital earlier today. He said the chances were good Hasenfus would be released within days, possibly today.
   Dodd, accompanied by the prisoner's wife, Sally, visited Hasenfus on Tuesday evening at Tipitapa prison five miles east of Managua.
   The senator said he believed Hasenfus could be "an important witness" in investigations into the channeling of funds from Iranian arms sales to the U.S.-backed Contras.
   "I think he's got something to say. He expressed a willingness to talk to members of the staff and the members of those committees," Dodd told NBC. "I think it would be worthwhile to get him home. Certainly the Nicaraguans, for their own reasons, are going to see that as important."
   Dodd also said he was granted permission to visit Sam Nesley Hall, identified as an American suspected of spying. So far, the Nicaraguan government has ignored a request by the U.S. Embassy that an American consul visit Hall.
   Nicaraguan authorities say Hall was arrested Friday at a military base outside Managua with maps stuffed in his socks. Ortega claimed Hall smuggled explosives into the country to help the Contras.
   Hall is being held under a national emergency law at a Managua jail for political prisoners. He has not been formally charged.
   Hall has been described as being 49 and from Dayton, Ohio. News reports in the United States say he is the brother of Rep. Tony P. Hall, D-Ohio.
   Dodd said Tony Hall also was granted permission to visit the prisoner. Dodd said he talked to the congressman by telephone Tuesday and asked him whether he had any message for the prisoner. Dodd did not elaborate.
   Dodd, a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, has been critical of the Reagan administration's backing of the Contras. He is expected to become chairman of the Western Hemisphere Affairs Sub-Committee when Congress convenes in January.
   Dodd is on a private fact-finding tour of Central America. He has already visited Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Honduras. He plans to stop in Mexico on his way home.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 19 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hasenfus
^Reports Hasenfus Released To Influence U.S. Opinion
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ The government freed American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus to influence U.S. public opinion against further support for Nicaraguan rebels, the official Sandinista newspaper said Friday.
   "Every day that passes there are more people in the United States who join the voices that demand the end of the war of aggression," the newspaper Barricada said.
   In its editorial, the paper said, "We delivered into the hands of the friends of the revolution a boomerang from the White House. We delivered the proof that they are the hawks that promote the war that destroys the Nicaraguan people."
   Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who helped gain the release Wednesday of Hasenfus, has said he expected him to be called before congressional committees investigating the White House's clandestine sale of arms to Iran and the delivery of some of the profits to the Nicaraguan rebels known as the Contras.
   Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., was a cargo handler aboard a flight carrying arms and supplies to the rebels inside Nicaragua. The C-123 was shot down Oct. 5. Hasenfus parachuted to safety but the two American pilots and a Nicaraguan radio operator were killed in the crash.
   Hasenfus was captured the next day and said he was working for Corporate Air Services, linked to Southern Air Transport, a charter company formerly operated by the CIA.
   He reportedly told a delegation of American lawyers who visited him in prison that he believed he was working for the White House, although he said he was never told that directly.
   Hasenfus, sentenced to 30 years in prison, was pardoned by President Daniel Ortega and the National Assembly and flew out of Nicaragua hours later with Dodd.
   Barricada said a random survey it conducted showed the pardon was controversial.
   "Hasenfus should have paid for all the suffering he caused by the arms he transported," one of those surveyed was quoted as saying.
   Another said although he wanted Hasenfus to "rot in jail," Nicaragua "is not an island and must take into account international public opinion."
   Barricada, appealing to the leftist government as well as the public to discuss the pardon with "maturity," said that in order to win the war, the government "must put on our side international public opinion, especially that of the United States, to persuade the warmongers (to stop)."
   Meanwhile, no firm announcements were made about what would happen to another American prisoner.
   Ortega has said that Sam Nesley Hall of Dayton, Ohio, arrested Dec. 12 near a Sandinista military air base, probably would be brought to trial before a People's Tribunal, the same court that convicted Hasenfus.
   But Thelma Salinas, a tribunal spokeswoman, said Friday the government had not contacted the court about the case.
   Ortega charged that Hall was working indirectly for the U.S. government and that he admitted bringing explosives into the country to help the rebels. But he did not say when Hall would be charged or what the charges would include.
   Sources at the Justice Ministry, which is responsible for prosecuting the case, said no legal proceedings have begun against Hall.
   On Thursday, U.S. Vice Consul Luis Moreno met with Hall for 10 minutes in a house belonging to the state security forces. The government has not said where it is keeping Hall, the brother of U.S. Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio.
   The American was seized in a restricted area near the Punta Huete air base, 13 miles northeast of Managua, and officials said he had maps stuffed in his socks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 22 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Hall
^American Prisoner Says He Spied for 'Tinker, Evers and Chance'
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ An American said Monday he was spying on military installations for three men codenamed "Tinker," "Evers" and "Chance" when he was arrested by the leftist Nicaraguan government.
   Two security officers ended the news conference by Sam Nelsey Hall after 25 minutes when he began to say that he had penetrated two Nicaraguan bases the night before he was arrested.
   Hall, of Dayton, Ohio, said he did not know the identities of three men he worked for other than that "Tinker" was based in Washington; "Evers" was based in England; and "Chance" was based in Miami.
   Tinker, Evers and Chance were a famous douple-play combination for the Chicago Cubs baseball team in the early 1900s.
   Hall, the brother of U.S. Rep. Tony P. Hall, D-Ohio, was arrested by security agents Dec. 12 in a restricted area near Punta Huete air force base, 13 miles northeast of Managua.
   "There was information that needed confirmation, that on one of the large bases here there were Cuban crews assemblying Soviet helicopters," the 49- year-old Hall said.
   Capt. Oscar Loza, an Interior Ministry official, showed reporters copies of handmade maps and sketches the government claims were found stuffed in one of Hall's socks when he was arrested. The maps were drawn in a child-like scrawl, with notes on the side.
   One was a rough sketch of Nicaragua. Another, inside a binder labeled, "Case: Rambo," was a sketch of Puerto Cabezas, a Nicaraguan port on the Caribbean, 120 miles northeast of Managua. Next to it were notes saying, "CUBA - attack sub, frigate - 2, patrol boats - 64," and listed the number of Soviet-made helicopters in an airfield in Managua.
   Hall, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, was dressed in a blue polo shirt, beige slacks and brown loafers. He spoke calmly during the news conference arranged by the Interior Ministry.
   "I was also to see what new construction was under way, such as fuel storage tanks," he said.
   Asked who he was gathering the information for and for what purpose, Hall replied, "I have no idea."
   Two security officers behind Hall abruptly yanked him from his chair when he began describing his activities the night before his arrest.
   "I understand if I do not say anything about the first night it would be better for me," Hall started to say. "The first night I penetrated two bases ..." but then he was silenced when the security men hustled him away.
   Capt. Nelba Blandon, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, refused to say why Hall was kept from talking further.
   She said Hall said nothing new about his penetration of other bases and that it had been mentioned in an Interior Ministry statement. But the ministry's only statements so far have mentioned just Punta Huete.
   Hall claimed he volunteered for military service, but received a medical discharge. He did not, however, specify what branch of the service he was in or what the nature of the discharge was.
   The prisoner also claimed that in November 1984 he was invited to a meeting at the Pentagon and that afternoon was sent for an interview at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., but that nothing came of it.
   He said the meeting at the Pentagon was to create a so-called "Phoenix Battalion," at a cost of $14 million to $19 million, but the idea was eventually dropped as too costly. He did not say why the battalion was to be created.
   According to Hall, he was picked up for this job on Dec. 8 and was paid $12,500 but refused to elaborate other than claim he was not working for the U.S. government.
   "I am not working for the U.S. government that I know of, and I can honestly say it," he said, adding that he was willing to take "truth serum" or a lie detector test to prove that.
   Asked what his trip here had to do with his alleged visit to CIA headquarters two years ago, Hall replied, "Nothing."
   President Daniel Ortega claimed Hall was spotting military targets for possible aerial bombardment by the United States and suggested Hall was mentally unbalanced.
   Ortega said Hall would be tried before a People's Tribunal for his activities, a court which last fall convicted mercenary Eugene Hasenfus of state security violations involving gun-running to Nicaraguan rebels.
   Hasenfus, pardoned by Ortega last week after serving two months of a 30- year prison term, now is at home in Marinette, Wis.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 23 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Hall
^Guards Remove Congressman's Brother at News Conference
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ Guards yanked American Sam Nesley Hall from his chair and hustled him out of a news conference when he claimed that he sneaked onto two Nicaraguan military bases the night before his capture.
   Security agents arrested Hall, 49, on Dec. 12 in a restricted area near Punta Huete air force base, 13 miles northeast of Managua. President Daniel Ortega has accused him of spotting military targets for possible aerial bombardment by the United States.
   Hall said Monday that he was spying in Nicaragua for three men codenamed "Tinker," "Evers" and "Chance" - the name of a famous double-play combination for the Chicago Cubs baseball team in the early 1900s.
   Hall claimed "Tinker" was based in Washington; "Evers" was based in England; and "Chance" was based in Miami, but that he did not know their actual identities.
   "There was information that needed confirmation, that on one of the large bases here there were Cuban crews assembling Soviet helicopters," Hall said. "I was also to see what new construction was under way, such as fuel storage tanks."
   Hall, who is from Dayton, Ohio, spoke at a news conference arranged by the Interior Ministry. He wore gold-rimmed glasses, was dressed in a blue polo shirt, beige slacks and brown loafers and spoke calmly.
   But Ortega has suggested Hall, the brother of U.S. Rep. Tony Hall, an Ohio Democrat, is mentally unbalanced.
   The New York Times today quoted Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who visited Hall in jail last week, as saying there was "a lot of eye-rolling" among Sandinistas familiar with Hall's case. "It sounds like a guy who read a classified ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine," Dodd was quoted as saying.
   Ortega says Hall, who has not yet been formally charged, will be tried before a People's Tribunal, a revolutionary court.
   The same same court convicted and sentenced another American, Eugene Hasenfus, to 30 years in prison for running guns to Nicaraguan rebels. Last week, Ortega pardoned Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., and allowed him to return home.
   Asked what his trip to Nicaragua had to do with with a visit he allegedly made to CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., two years ago, Hall replied, "Nothing."
   Asked why he was gathering information and for whom, Hall replied, "I have no idea." But he denied he was knowingly working for the U.S. government, and said he was willing to take "truth serum" or a lie detector test to prove it.
   "I am not working for the U.S. government that I know of, and I can honestly say it," Hall said. He claimed he was picked up for the Nicaragua job on Dec. 8 and was paid $12,500 but refused to elaborate.
   About 25 minutes into the news conference, two state security agents abruptly yanked Hall out when he claimed he penetrated two military bases the night before his arrest.
   "I understand if I do not say anything about the first night it would be better for me. The first night I penetrated two bases .. .," Hall started to say before the security men hustled him away.
   Questioned by reporters, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Capt. Nelba Blandon refused to say why Hall was silenced, claiming only that Hall said nothing new. She claimed that two bases have been mentioned in an Interior Ministry statement, but the ministry's statements so far have only mentioned Punta Huete, near which Hall was arrested.
   An Interior Ministry official, Capt. Oscar Loza, showed reporters photographs of a pair of binoculars and a Kodak instamatic camera he claimed Hall was carrying when he was arrested, along with handmade maps and sketches the American allegedly had stuffed in one sock.
   One paper had a rough sketch of Nicaragua, with notes in a childlike scrawl on the side. Another - inside a binder labeled "Case: Rambo" - had a sketch of Puerto Cabezas, a Nicaraguan port on the Caribbean, 120 miles northeast of Managua.
   Next to the sketch was written: "CUBA - attack sub, frigate - 2, patrol boats - 64," and the number of Soviet-made helicopters in an airfield in Managua.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 26 1986
^AM-Nicaragua-Contras
^Ortega Proposes Repatriation of Nicaraguans in Honduras
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega proposed that Nicaraguan rebels in Honduras be returned under an amnesty program or sent to other countries, the official Barricada newspaper reported Friday.
   The newspaper, voice of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, said the plan presented to Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo also provided for the repatriation of Nicaraguan refugees living in neighboring Honduras.
   Barricada reported that Ortega's message said Nicaragua was ready to cooperate with the Honduran government "to receive, with all legal guarantees, the Nicaraguan citizens involved in counter-revolutionary activities who voluntarily wish to return under the amnesty law."
   Amnesty for the U.S.-supported rebels, called Contras, has been offered for the past three years, and there was little reason to expect Azcona would intercede now.
   A person answering the telephone at the Honduran Embassy in Managua said he was not authorized to comment on Ortega's proposal.
   Last month, the Honduran president rejected a Nicaraguan proposal for a U.N. commission to visit and monitor the border area, which has been the scene of repeated clashes.
   An estimated 12,000 rebels belonging to the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest Contra group, are based in camps along the rugged and sparsely populated countryside of southcentral Honduras bordering Nicaragua.
   Ortega's message to Azcona said "an effective and long-lasting solution to the existing tensions" would be the repatriation of those rebels wishing to return under the 3-year-old amnesty offer.
   He said those not wishing to return to Nicaraguan could be sent to other countries.
   Ortega also offered to work with the Honduran government and with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to repatriate Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras.
   The Sandinista government would help the United Nations pay for the costs of a repatriation program, Ortega said.
   "My government considers that these actions can resolve the tensions in the border zone, the serious problem that the presence of the counter-revolut ionary groups means for Honduras and the burden that the refugees represent," the message said.
   At least 30,000 Nicaraguan refugees are in Honduras, many of them Indians from the Caribbean coast.
   Ortega said he was sending the proposal to U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar and to the Contadora group of Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela that has been trying to resolve Central American tensions for the past four years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 27 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Contras
^Ortega Proposes Repatriation of Nicaraguans in Honduras
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega has proposed that Contra rebels in neighboring Honduras be returned to Nicaragua under an amnesty program or sent to other countries, according to the official Sandinista newspaper.
   Barricada said Friday the plan was presented to Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo. It also provided for the repatriation of about 30,000 Nicaraguan refugees living in Honduras.
   The newspaper reported that Ortega's message said Nicaragua was ready to cooperate with the Honduran government "to receive, with all legal guarantees, the Nicaraguan citizens involved in counterrevolutionary activities who voluntarily wish to return under the amnesty law."
   Amnesty for the U.S.-supported Contras, who are fighting Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government, has been offered for the past three years, and there was little reason to expect Azcona would intercede now.
   A person answering the telephone at the Honduran Embassy in Managua said he was not authorized to comment on Ortega's proposal.
   Last month, the Honduran president rejected a Nicaraguan proposal for a U.N. commission to visit and monitor the border area, which has been the scene of repeated clashes.
   An estimated 12,000 rebels belonging to the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest Contra group, are based in camps along the rugged and sparsely populated countryside of southcentral Honduras bordering Nicaragua.
   Ortega's message to Azcona said "an effective and long-lasting solution to the existing tensions" would be the repatriation of those rebels wishing to return under the amnesty offer.
   He said those not wishing to return to Nicaraguan could be sent to other countries.
   Ortega also offered to work with the Honduran government and with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to repatriate Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras.
   The Sandinista government would help the United Nations pay for the costs of a repatriation program, Ortega said.
   "My government considers that these actions can resolve the tensions in the border zone, the serious problem that the presence of the counterrevoluti onary groups means for Honduras and the burden that the refugees represent," the message said.
   At least 30,000 Nicaraguan refugees are in Honduras, many of them Indians from the Caribbean coast.
   Ortega said he was sending the proposal to U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar and to the Contadora group of Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela that has been trying to resolve Central American tensions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dec 31 1986
^AM-Ortega-New Year
^Ortega Calls 1986 a Year of "Pain and Blood" for Nicaragua With AM-World-New Year Bjt
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
   MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) _ President Daniel Ortega on Wednesday called 1986 a year of "pain and blood" for Nicaragua but vowed his government will battle U.S.-supported Contra rebels until they are defeated.
   The motto for 1987 is, "Here nobody surrenders," Ortega said in a year- end speech to a rally of about 2,000 army reserve troops and a like number of onlookers in one of Managua's main plazas.
   "President Reagan, ... your freedom fighter, your armed opposition, your killers, terrorists and gunmen are being defeated and will continue to be defeated," Ortega said, referring to the anti-Sandinista rebels, whom Reagan calls freedom fighters.
   Ortega claimed the Contras, who have been fighting the leftist Sandinista government for five years, suffered 6,600 casualties in 1986, including 4,000 dead. He claimed that casualties plus desertions have reduced the Contras' strength from 11,000 to 6,500 combatants.
   Government forces lost 1,019 killed and 1,798 wounded during the past year, while another 1,200 civilians were killed, wounded or kidnapped by Contras, he said. He gave no breakdown of the civilian casualties.
   "1986 was a year of great sacrifice that raised the quota of pain and blood of the Nicaraguan people," Ortega said.
   He warned Nicaraguans that further sacrifices will be required in 1987 "to consolidate the revolution" that 7 1/2  years ago overthrew President Anastasio Somoza, a rightist pro-American strongman. Somoza's family had ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist for 42 years before that.