Pubdate: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA) Copyright: 2000 San Francisco Examiner Contact: http://www.examiner.com/ Forum: http://examiner.com/cgi-bin/WebX Author: Bob Egelko, The Examiner Staff 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake