LIGGETT SEEKS IMMUNITY

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Liggett Group Inc. is ready to help the Justice
Department's criminal investigation of the tobacco industry in exchange for
immunity, according to a source close to the
investigation.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed today that
Liggett has offered to provide the government with industry information on
nicotine's addictive qualities and efforts to hide health risks.

The company also has offered to make its scientists and other experts
available to the government in its three-year-old investigation, said the
source.

Among the allegations the department is probing is whether industry
officials lied to Congress in 1996 when they testified to having no
knowledge of nicotine's addictive qualities or averse health affects from
smoking.

Liggett, which is owned by Brooke Group Ltd. and markets L&M, Chesterfield,
Eve and Lark cigarettes in the United States, broke with bigger companies
last year in reaching an earlier settlement with 22 states that sued the
industry to recover Medicaid funds spent on treating smokers.

While declining to comment on any possible negotiations, Bennett s. LeBow,
chief executive officer of the Brooke Group, Liggett's parent company, told
the Los Angeles Times that ``we're trying to do the right thing.''