DEA ADMITS ERRORS LED TO MAN'S ARREST IN SYRIA

Federal drug enforcement officials admit they made "mistakes in
information" when tipping off the Syrian government about a Denver man's
visit there in January.

Hassan Zaghmot - a 44-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who pleaded guilty
in federal court to distributing a key ingredient used to make
methamphetamine - has been detained in his native Syria since police there
arrested him in January upon his arrival.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had alerted the Syrian government
to be on the lookout for Zaghmot, fearing he would smuggle in large sums of
cash and try to avoid sentencing in Denver.

But the DEA's efforts may have backfired, keeping Zaghmot from serving his
time in the United States.

In a letter to the Syrian Interior Ministry, the DEA falsely stated that
Zaghmot already had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The misinformation worries one of Zaghmot's lawyers, who has learned that
it's a crime in Syria to have committed a crime in another country.

"The DEA got the facts wrong," Denver defense attorney Walter Gerash said
this week. "This wouldn't have happened if they didn't get involved."

Zaghmot was arrested and jailed as soon as he arrived in Syria in January,
and now is under house arrest while authorities there investigate his
activities in the United States.

His detention in Syria and the DEA agents who may have provoked it have
raised the ire of U.S. District Judge Daniel Sparr, who had granted Zaghmot
permission to visit his sick mother in Damascus before being sentenced.

When Zaghmot didn't show up at his sentencing hearing earlier this month,
Sparr threatened to dismiss the charges against him, angry that the DEA
thrust itself into the case. He demanded that the federal government issue
a report on the DEA's involvement.

That report, filed Friday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Rhodes,
outlined that the DEA notified the Syrians because the agency believed
Zaghmot was a flight risk and wanted to recover money from his drug-
distribution activities.

Rhodes admitted errors in the communique.

"There was obviously a misstatement concerning the sentencing that has not
taken place, and the 10-year sentence which also has not been ordered," he
wrote.