FORMER CONTRA WINS REVIEW OF U.S. DRUG TIES

Fights Deportation To Nicaragua, Says CIA Knew Of Cocaine Deals

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

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

In court papers opposing Pena's challenge to his current deportation order,
the U.S. attorney's office said no such assurance was given.

Pena's case recalls the controversy over allegations of CIA- backed drug
dealing by the contras, the U.S.-supported guerrillas fighting Nicaragua's
leftist government in the 1980s. Accused in a San Jose Mercury News series
of connections to the early crack cocaine trade in Southern California, the
CIA hotly denied having anything to do with Los Angeles drug traffickers
who claimed contra connections.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The U.S. attorney's office, which represented immigration officials who
want Pena deported, declined comment on the ruling.

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

He applied for political asylum in August 1984 but was arrested three
months later on charges of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute it.

Pena said he had been asked by Norwin Meneses' nephew, Jairo Meneses, to
travel to Los Angeles with money that would be used to buy cocaine and
finance contras, whose U.S. military aid had been cut off by Congress. He
was paid about $6,000 for carrying money and drugs to Los Angeles between
March and November 1984, the court said.

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

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

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

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