GUATEMALA COURT CLEARS SWISS MAN

ZACAPA, Guatemala (AP) An appellate court cleared a former Nestle executive
and two other men of drug charges Friday and reduced the sentences of two
other Swiss men, enabling all five to walk free.

The three-judge panel of the Sixth Appeals Court in Zacapa, 70 miles
northeast of Guatemala City, overturned a September conviction of Andreas
Haenggi Wyndler on drug-smuggling charges, citing insufficient evidence.

The case against Haenggi, his son and three others had involved shipments
of cocaine worth $100 million sent from Guatemala to Europe in shipping
containers and ornamental plants.

Haenggi's lawyer Fernando Linares, said: "I'm very pleased with the
decisions but after 18 months in prison, my client was there too long.
Justice took too long."

Haenggi, 62-year-old former manager of a Nestle subsidiary in Guatemala,
originally had been ordered to serve 12 years in prison and pay a fine of
$77,000. His son, Nicholas Haenggi Chalandrian, 23, had been sentenced to
20 years and fined $155,000, as was Swiss citizen Silvio Giovanoli, 30.

On Friday, the appellate court reduced the younger Haenggi's conviction
from international drug trafficking to concealment, reducing his sentence
to three years and ruling that he could avoid jail if he paid additional
fines of about $6,800.

The younger Haenggi kissed his girlfriend and laughed after hearing the
verdict. "I feel very happy," he said.

Giovanoli, the owner of the business that transported the containers, had
his drug smuggling conviction reduced to a count of facilitating drug
smuggling. His sentence was cut to five years, which also could be avoided
through payment of fines totaling nearly $23,500.

Two others were cleared due to insufficient evidence and allowed to go
free: Frank Schilling, a German hotel manager who had been sentenced to
five years, and Jose Luis Zebadua, a former Guatemalan police commander who
had been sentenced to 12 years for protecting the shipments.

The original sentences had been protested by the Swiss Foreign Ministry as
"extremely hard and disproportionate" and officials had asserted that parts
of the proceedings "didn't meet legal requirements."

Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Livio Zanolari welcomed the court's
actions Friday, and a Nestle spokesman said the verdict confirmed the
company's belief in Haenggi's innocence.

"We're glad that Andreas Haenggi is being freed after 18 months which have
been very hard for him," spokesman Hans-Joerg Renk said at Nestle
headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland.