CIVILIAN COURT ORDERS RELEASE OF PERUVIAN AIR FORCE PILOTS JAILED FOR
MISSIONARY PLANE DOWNING

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A civilian court has ordered the release of two air
force pilots who were jailed after they mistakenly shot down a small plane
in 2001, killing an American missionary and her infant child, their lawyer
said Monday.

Defense lawyer Jorge Power said his clients' right to be charged within
nine months of incarceration had been violated. They had been in prison for
more than 10 months.

Peruvian Air Force Maj. Jose Antonio Redhead and Lt. Richard Hercilla
should be released this week, Power said. He said the court made its
decision Thursday.

The release order followed a successful appeal to the Constitutional
Tribunal, Peru's highest court for constitutional matters, Power said.

Redhead and Hercilla piloted a fighter plane that shot down a Cessna float
plane, instantly killing American missionary Veronica Bowers, 35, and her
7-month-old daughter, Charity, in a botched drug interdiction mission in
April 2001.

Power said the pilots still face charges including disobedience and
negligence, but did not know when they would go to trial.

Pilot Kevin Donaldson, who sustained serious leg wounds, crash-landed the
plane on the Amazon River. Bowers' husband, Jim Bowers, and the couple's
son, Cory, escaped serious injury.

The Peruvian plane downed the Cessna the Bowers were traveling in after a
CIA-operated surveillance flight identified it as a possible drug courier.

A joint U.S.-Peru report presented in August of last year found that
procedural errors, language problems and an overloaded communications
system all contributed to the accident.

The report did not assign blame for the mishap but said neither nation
followed procedures developed by the two governments in 1994 to avoid
similar problems in drug interdiction missions.

Peru's Defense Minister Aurelio Loret de Mola said earlier this month that
drug interdiction flights will resume in November.

Peru's air force declined to comment on the case.