PERU PLEDGES TO REOPEN INQUIRY INTO REPORTER'S '89 KILLING

Tribune Journalist Was Abducted There

Peru's president has promised to try to reopen the investigation into
the 1989 slaying of Tampa Tribune reporter Todd C. Smith.

Alan Garcia's pledge followed a meeting with U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson on
Thursday and came without reporters' prompting at a subsequent news
conference in Lima, Peru's capital.

"We'll work with the justice system to bring to light the truth and
so at least his parents will have the consolation of knowing the
truth," Garcia told reporters.

Any decision on additional investigation would be up to Peru's Supreme Court.

Smith was a Tribune columnist who went to Peru on a working vacation
in November 1989. He wanted to investigate links between drug
traffickers and Maoist guerillas.

He was abducted from an airfield and found beaten and strangled days later.

An investigation focused on Peru's Shining Path guerrillas,
culminating with the 1993 conviction of Jose Manrique.

A transcript from Manrique's trial, obtained by a press freedom group
in 2004, implicated businessman and suspected drug smuggler Fernando
Zevallos, however.

Zevallos operated an airline now suspected of covering a vast drug-
smuggling operation.

He is in a Peruvian jail on drug trafficking charges.

According to an Associated Press reporter who viewed the transcript,
Zevallos and two associates were concerned Smith had learned about a
pending shipment of cocaine from the Peruvian town of Uchiza to
Colombia when an order was issued to kill him.

Nelson has pushed the issue since reports of the transcript emerged.
Garcia impressed him with his knowledge of the case and his resolve,
said Nelson, D-Orlando.

"When I broached the subject, he didn't hesitate a moment," Nelson
said late Friday afternoon from Miami. "He said he wanted to assure
me that he was going to do all in his power to get this moving."

Garcia followed up his remarks with a news release repeating his
commitment to "work with the judicial branch of government so that
the case will be totally brought to light." He was elected president
in June and previously led the country from 1985 to 1990.

Nelson also met with Peruvian journalists who investigated Zevallos'
drug trafficking and Smith's murder. Four of their sources were later
slain, Nelson said, but their perseverance led to evidence that could
fuel a new investigation.

If additional evidence is generated by Peruvian authorities, it is
possible Zevallos could be charged in the United States with crimes
relating to Smith's death, Nelson said. Nelson has expressed a desire
to see Zevallos extradited here to face such charges.

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso contributed to this report.