Pubdate: Mon, 13 Dec 2004
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2004 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Rick Vecchio, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

NEW TWIST IN MURDER CASE

LIMA - Fifteen years ago, Florida journalist Todd Smith was slain
after he ventured into Peru's jungle to investigate links between
Shining Path guerrillas and the cocaine trade.

At the time, Peru's Interior Ministry said the 28-year-old Tampa
Tribune reporter had been captured by the Maoist rebels and possibly
sold to drug traffickers for $30,000, the bounty then offered for
anyone suspected of being a U.S. drug enforcement agent.

A secret counterterrorism court in April 1993 sentenced Shining Path
guerrilla Jose Manrique to 30 years in prison for taking part in the
murder.

A U.S. Embassy official confirmed that Manrique, the only person ever
tried and convicted for the crime, received an early release, the
details of which were sketchy.

Now, the transcript of that secret trial has emerged, including a
police intelligence report that identifies Fernando Zevallos --
allegedly Peru's most notorious cocaine trafficker -- as one of the
masterminds behind Smith's killing, The Associated Press has learned.

The complete court file was obtained by the Lima-based Institute for
Press and Society, an internationally funded press freedom
organization.

Terry Parham, director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's
Lima office, would not comment on Zevallos' alleged link to Smith's
murder, but told the AP: ``Fernando Zevallos is the Al Capone of Peru,
and I'll stand by that statement.''

According to one of several detailed intelligence reports in the
transcript, the guerrillas who tortured and strangled Smith were
working for Zevallos and two brothers involved in the drug trade,
Arnulfo and Moises Zamora.

The three allegedly wanted Smith killed because they believed he had
discovered information about upcoming shipments of nearly three tons
of semi-processed cocaine from the Peruvian jungle town of Uchiza to
Colombia.

Peru's leading daily, El Comercio, on Sunday cited an excerpt of one
of the intelligence reports saying that Zevallos called a meeting of
cocaine traffickers and guerrillas and ``made the plan and coordinated
all those designated to liquidate the gringo.''

But Peruvian investigators told the AP that other confidential
informants identified Arnulfo Zamora as the one who gave the actual
order.

Zevallos could not be reached for comment, but his lawyer in Miami,
David B. Rothman, said, ``For well over a decade, anonymous,
misleading, coerced and paid-for allegations of criminal conduct have
been made against Fernando Zevallos. Judges, prosecutors, Peruvian and
U.S. financial experts, a renowned polygraph examiner and most
recently an internationally recognized investigative agency have
proven the allegations false.''

Smith, who aspired to be a foreign correspondent, was in Peru for a
working vacation.

His body was found beaten and strangled on Nov. 21, 1989, near Uchiza,
245 miles northeast of Lima. A note found on his body indicated that
the killers believed he was a U.S. drug enforcement agent.

The secret trial transcript showed that the key prosecution witness
against Manrique was a paid U.S. informant, Reynaldo Beltran.

Beltran identified Manrique as one of the guerrillas who took him
prisoner with Smith after they had been seen speaking together in
Uchiza's main square. He said he escaped after the guerrillas untied
his hands, intending to use the rope to strangle Smith.

Beltran did not mention cocaine traffickers in his testimony.

According to DEA documents obtained by the AP, Zevallos owned a jungle
air charter company, Tausa, and spent the latter part of the 1980s
using Uchiza as his base of operations to fly frequent shipments of
semi-processed cocaine to Colombia.

Zevallos and Arnulfo Zamora went on trial with 10 co-defendants in
Lima earlier this year for their alleged roles in Peru's largest drug
bust of the past decade -- the 1995 seizure of 3.3 tons of cocaine
destined for Guadalajara, Mexico. Zevallos, who could be sentenced to
up to 15 years in prison if convicted, is free on his own
recognizance.

Arnulfo Zamora died in prison of stomach cancer last week, a Peruvian
law enforcement official said. Moises Zamora was murdered in 1999, a
second law enforcement source said.

Smith went unaccompanied to Uchiza against the advice of U.S. Embassy
officials. He interviewed members of a local agricultural cooperative,
who took him to see the area's vast hills covered with coca leaf --
the raw material for cocaine.

The day before he planned to leave the region, he was advised that it
was unsafe to check into a hotel, so he spent the night in a local
municipal office.

The next day he made his way to the airstrip outside Uchiza and was
last seen speaking to Carlos Arevela, a Tausa ticket agent, the
intelligence report said. Four heavily armed men emerged from the
jungle. One of them grabbed Smith forced him into a pickup truck.

For the next several days, Smith was moved by the guerrillas from a
hotel owned by one of the Zamora brothers to two nearby locations in
the jungle, the intelligence report said.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin