PBS SERIES RESURRECTS DRUG-TRAFFICKING ROLE OF SLAIN BR PILOT

A two-part series on the Public Broadcasting System about the history of the
U.S. war on drugs re-examines the role of Baton Rouge pilot Barry Seal, who
smuggled cocaine for top members of the Colombian cartel.

The broadcast includes interviews with two of the cartel members, the Ochoa
brothers, who deny any role in Seal’s death in 1986 in the front lot of the
Salvation Army Community Treatment Center on Airline Highway.

The interviews about Seal were in the first part of the series, which aired
Oct. 9 on the show "Frontline." The second part will be shown at 8 p.m.
Monday on WLPB.

Producer of the program, Martin Smith of New York, interviewed two of the
three Ochoa brothers for the nationwide broadcast.

He said he lucked into meeting the Ochoas after a Colombian reporter told
him about an equestrian school near Medellin that might be owned by the
Ochoa family. Smith said he signed up for riding lessons that lasted several
hours.

"We came back to the ranch, and there was Juan-David Ochoa," Smith said.

Smith said he introduced himself and was upfront from the beginning with the
Ochoas about his intent to interview key figures in the cartel.

"I went with a camera around my neck and a notebook in my pocket," he said.

They insisted they had been out of the drug business since 1991 when they
surrendered to Colombian authorities and served five-year prison sentences,
he said.

The arrest of younger brother, Fabio Ochoa, in October 1999 in Colombia on
drug charges may have prompted the two older brothers to go on camera, Smith
said. Fabio Ochoa was not interviewed, he said.

Smith questioned Jorge Ochoa and Juan-David Ochoa about the murder of Barry
Seal. It was the first time that either man had given an in-depth interview,
Smith said.

Smith said the atmosphere became frosty when he asked them about Seal.

"It was quite uncomfortable, frankly," he said. "We didn’t talk about it at
great length because they weren’t very interested in it."

In the broadcast, Smith asked Jorge Ochoa who killed Barry Seal, and the
Colombian replied that he didn’t know, without saying anything further.

Smith said Jorge Ochoa, in an interview not included in the broadcast or on
the "Frontline" Web page, blamed Seal’s slaying on fellow cartel member
Pablo Escobar, who was killed in December 1993 in Colombia by authorities.

Seal’s brother, Baton Rouge pilot Ben Seal, said he didn’t see the
broadcast, but he said it didn’t surprise him that the Ochoas would deny any
complicity in the February 1986 murder-for-hire.

"Of course, they’re going to deny it," Ben Seal said. "Wouldn’t you if you
had a murder charge pending?"

Jorge Ochoa, when asked by "Frontline" if he got to know any of the
smuggling pilots, replied, "I didn’t know any of them. I didn’t personally
meet any pilots."

He also said in the interview that he never even talked with Seal although
he said Seal had flown drugs for the cartel.

In the "Frontline" interview, Juan-David Ochoa described Seal as a pilot who
hauled cocaine for his brother Jorge:

"But for my own cocaine, I never had any accounts with Barry Seal. I only
met him once. I saw him only once in my lifetime. ... When we were in
Panama, he came to Panama to talk to Jorge my brother, with Pablo Escobar
and with Gonzalo Rodriguez. And I saw him perhaps three to five minutes.
That was the only time in my life I met him. I never talked to him then or
anything ... ."

In a separate "Frontline" interview, cartel pilot Fernando Arenas said Seal
was a trusted, close friend of the Ochoas who felt betrayed upon learning he
was working with U.S. authorities to prosecute them. Arenas said in the
interview that it was clear to him that the Ochoas arranged Seal’ s murder:

"The Ochoas really trusted this guy (Seal) with everything. He was in
Colombia. He knew the families. He was treated like another part of the
family, another member of the family ... Jorge especially had ... a good
time with him. He thought about him as an older brother, something like
that. He really trusted this guy. He really liked this guy.

"So feeling betrayed in that way was a huge offense for him. So of course he
had to go out ... . Fabio wanted to do it personally. Jorge convinced him
not to, because of the risk involved. But Fabio really wanted to do it
personally ... . After what happened with Barry Seal, the Nicaraguans got
too nervous about what we were doing there ... and said, ‘We need that
cocaine out of here as soon as you can.’ So we had to take that cocaine
out."

Al Winters, assistant U.S. attorney in New Orleans, investigated the Seal
murder, resulting in a July 1986 federal grand jury indictment of Fabio
Ochoa, Escobar and Rafael Cardona Salazar.

Federal criminal court records in Baton Rouge show the indictment against
Fabio Ochoa remains open, but charges were dropped against Escobar and
Salazar after both men were killed by Colombian authorities.

Winters said Fabio Ochoa can’t be brought to the United States for his
alleged role in plotting the Seal murder because crimes committed before
1997 cannot be used by Colombian authorities to extradite a defendant to the
United States.

The drug smuggler originally hired to kill Seal, Max Mermelstein, was the
subject of a book "The Man Who Made It Snow." He claims that he was hired by
Salazar to kill Seal at the behest of Fabio Ochoa and Pablo Escobar for
$500,000.

Mermelstein’s book said he visited Baton Rouge three times to scout the city
for possible locations to kill Seal, but he failed to carry out the
contract. A group of Colombians was hired to carry out the job.

Federal authorities in Florida considered Seal to be one of the most
significant federal witnesses against the cartel. A federal judge in
Florida, who sentenced Seal in a smuggling case there, allowed him to remain
free.

However, U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola of Baton Rouge, when sentencing
Seal on a separate drug-trafficking charge, refused to allow Seal to go
free, insisting that the federal witness must serve at least six months at a
Baton Rouge Salvation Army halfway house. Seal had refused to enroll in the
federal witness protection program because of the complications involved in
that system.

Polozola also refused to allow Seal to carry a weapon, and he forbade any
bodyguards from carrying guns.

The conspiracy to kill Seal began on Nov. 15, 1984, the same day that Jorge
Ochoa was arrested in Spain, according to the federal indictment against
Fabio Ochoa.

Seal had signed an affidavit to enable Spanish authorities to extradite
Jorge Ochoa to the United States to face the Florida drug-trafficking
charges, according to Baton Rouge lawyer Lewis Unglesby, who represented
Seal.

That was the reason behind the contract to kill Seal, Unglesby explained.

Prem Burns, assistant district attorney in East Baton Rouge Parish who
prosecuted Seal’s killers, agreed.

"So when Barry Seal was killed, Spain dropped the extradition proceedings,
and Jorge went back to Colombia," Burns said.

Unglesby said it was common knowledge that Seal’s life was in danger.

"No one will dispute that there was a contract out for Barry Seal," Unglesby
said. "That was well-known by the CIA and DEA, and that was revealed to
Polozola."

Unglesby said he believes his client’s murder marked the day the United
States threw in the towel on the drug war. He said the government could not
or would not protect the key witness in what could have been the pivotal
case against top cartel members, one of whom was on the verge of
extradition.

"We just conceded defeat," Unglesby said. "They had the best chance ever of
breaking up the cartel. He (Seal) was at the epicenter of the whole deal."

Seal’s cooperation with the government went beyond assisting authorities
make a case against the drug cartel. His efforts also were used by the White
House to support aid for the Contras in resistance of the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua.

Photographs secretly taken of Seal’s landing in Nicaragua in 1984 were used
by President Reagan as evidence that Sandinistas were involved in drug
trafficking.

The photographs, taken with a camera installed by the CIA in Seal’s C-130
cargo plane, showed a Nicaraguan official with Seal and cartel member Pablo
Escobar loading cocaine onto Seal’s aircraft.

Oliver North, senior member of the National Security Council under Reagan,
told "Frontline" he wasn’t the source of a leak to the Washington Times
about Seal’s undercover work in Nicaragua.

North said the only individuals he told about the Seal operation were
members of Congress, and he said the allegation that he was the source was
unfair and "based on erroneous reporting and God only knows how many
sources."

"It was certainly not to our advantage to have that story leaked before the
operation could be fully conducted," he told interviewers.

Seal was shot to death Feb. 19, 1986, with a silenced machine gun as he
parked his car in the front lot of the Salvation Army Community Treatment
Center on Airline Highway.

Four Colombians were caught before they could leave the United States. Three
of them, Miguel "The Chin" Velez, Bernardo Antonio Vasquez and Carlos
Quintero-Cruz, were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life
in prison. Mermelstein was a key witness for the prosecution. The fourth man
was prosecuted in Florida on federal drug-trafficking charges.

State prosecutor Burns said all appeals in the case were finally completed
last year, 13 years after the trial. She said the three men still insist on
their innocence.

Complete transcripts of the interviews and additional information on the
drug wars can be found on the "Frontline" Web site http://www.frontline.org.