The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 5

"-Si THE PALM BEACH POST TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1987 4 VIDEO TELEVISION STEREO INCLUDES: FREE MOVIES THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RCA "Pro Wonder" Camcorder 1 -piece recordplayback convenience fl.2 lens with 6:1 power zoom Infrared auto focus system 3-way ACDC versatility High quality VHS (HQ) Digital tape time remaining indicator This 1984 photograph shows Pablo Escobar, striped shirt, and Federico Vaughan handling cocaine at Nicaraguan airport Nicaraguan leaders' drug links questioned SPECIAL SUPER SALE PRICE ONLY (o) 25" Monitor Receiver With Remote Control CHANNELOCK DIGITAL REMOTE CONTROL DIRECT-AUDIOVIDEO JACK PANEL HI-CON 100 COTY PICTURE TUBE AUTO 25" RCA ColotlVaEc Monitor-Receiver STEREO PROGRAMMING CRYSTAL CABLE TUNING SPECIAL SUPER SALE PRICE ONLY YOUR VHS DRUGSfrom 1A ment now concedes. That conces-: sion undermines the basis for linking Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, President Ortega's brother, to the operation, In fact, the man who supervised Seal's work for the government 1 Richard Gregorie, chief assistant U.S. attorney in Miami says he could find no information beyond Seal's word tying any Nicaraguan official to the drug shipment. As for Federico Vaughan, the man Rea-j gan called an aide to a Sandinista commandante, federal prosecutors and drug officials now say they aren't sure who he is. Asked about the matter, a White House spokesman says, "We got the information from DEA and have received no indication form them of any change in their original assessment." Allegations surface i Now there are allegations that besides drugs, Seal may have been 1 involved with other sensitive cargo.

Four drug pilots in prison in Florida say they knew Seal as part I of a network that delivered weapons to airfields in Central America for the American-backed Contras and then sometimes flew back to the United States with cocaine. Though the Justice Department was quick to follow up Seal's Nicaraguan story with an indictment, it rejected allegations from the pilots and others of drug dealing by Contras. It is clear Seal was a major drug runner. He had a fleet of at least four planes, and he testified in federal court that he earned more i than $50 million smuggling drugs. The money did him little good.

On Feb. 19, 1986, as Seal was getting out of his white Cadillac at a Louisiana shelter where his probation required him to spend nights, a squad of hit men gunned him down. 1 As Seal related the story in his testimony, it was in Panama in mid-May 1984 that the Colombians introduced Vaughan to him as "some sort of a government official from Nicaragua." He said Vaughan claimed to be a top aide to Tomas Borge, the Sandinista interior minister and security-police chief. Seal testified that Vaughan took him and a co-pilot to Nicaragua on an airliner, dodging customs at the airport, and that they stayed at Vaughan's house overnight. Problem-plagued mission On his first scheduled drug run after becoming an informant, Seal testified, his plane skidded off a muddy Colombian airstrip and crashed as he was taking off.

He said the accident forced the 8 HOUR REMOTE CONTROL VIDEO RECORDER TDK MEM OR EX MAXELL FUJI KODAK FA 2 1987! CCI I M0DEL DCLL CMR200 TAPE STORE STEREO MONITOR 25" DIAGONAL RECEIVER BROADCAST STfREO RF CtPTION COMPUfOCUS VIDEO SYSTEM UNITED REMOTE CONTROl 155 SAVE CHANNEL CABLE COM PATIBlE 8 HOUR WIRELESS REMOTES HI-FI STEREO VIDEO fWEJrs CASSETTE RECORDER MOVIE MEMBERSHIP I VMS Ml fl SI(EO SOUND 1 INHARIO RIMOTE C77 1 ble ready voitaoe sm I TMESIS TUNER STOP AC fxS I HON PAUSE SEARCH is YOUR S5)97 I M- NOW MOVIE MEMBERSHIP REMOTE CONTROL 19" COLOR PORTABLE TV tOO. SOUD STATE SlffP TIM6R DtUJKf WALNUT CABINET CTHI949 EC VTS MOVK MEMSERSHT 8 HOUR fc, WIRELESS REMOTE VIDEO RECORDER VHS FRONT lOAD 8 FUNCTION HQ CIRCU-THY 1 AUTO REWIND 2571 REMOTE CONTROL 19" XL 100 COLOR TV hi CON1 RiCtUR TUBI CftN AUYQ PROGRAM MING ON VCR FN CHAN NLJMKI DfSPlAr RT Ctf tUNG mmvm Parsonic. cocaine shipment onto a smaller plane that needed to refuel to reach the U.S.; the refueling stop was in Nicaragua, he said, and Vaughan met the flight. As he related it, after taking off again, his plane was hit with anti-aircraft fire and limped into the main Managua airport, where he and his co-pilot were held by military omcers. Eventually, Seal testified, Vaughan's military driver brought a truck to the Managua airport, transferred the cocaine off the plane and drove it away.

He said he was jailed overnight, then picked up by Vaughan and given a small plane to fly home to tne united States, leaving the cocaine in Nicaragua. He said this plane was owned by Pablo Escobar, who the DEA says is a major partner in Colombia's largest cocaine syndicate. On the night of June 24, 1984, Seal continued, he, a co-pilot and a mechanic headed back to Managua to get the cocaine, flying his newly acquired C-123 cargo craft. Hidden within it was a secret camera, installed by the CIA at Rickenbacker Air Force Base in Ohio. Most of the grainy, shadowy photos show a few men in casual attire lounging against a grassy background.

Seal identified one as Vaughan, one as Escobar, the Colombian drug kingpin, and a third as another Colombian drug dealer. The State Department now confirms reports from Nicaragua that the airfield, Los Brasiles, is a civilian airfield used mainly for agricultural flights. Satellite track disputed The Justice Department says it knew that Seal's C-123 went to Nicaragua because a device aboard the plane enabled satellites to track it. But Gregorie, the federal prosecutor in Miami, and DEA agent Robert Joura concede that their only evidence of who Vaughan is comes from Seal and a tape of a call to a man Seal identified as him. The Nicaraguan government says that a Federico Vaughan worked in 1982 and 1983 as the deputy manager of an export-import company run by the Sandinista government but had left before the Seal flight and was never an aide to a commandante.

Drug pilots arrested with Seal say he was involved in flights that brought weapons to central American airfields for the Contras and sometimes returned to the U.S. with drugs. The pilots claim that their Contra weapons deliveries were directed by the CIA. Ihe people they say they worked with are known to have been supervised or monitored by the CIA and by Lt Col. Oliver North.

Dow Jonei Co Inc. All rightt reserved Richard Sharpstein, Velez's lawyer, said Seal was running drug deals while informing for the government. He called him "a smart, conniving, two-faced soldier of fortune, a mercenary doing whatever to benefit one man Adler 'Barry' Seal." The Palm Beach Post (USPS 418-720) 2751 S. Dixie Highway West Palm Beach, Ha. 33405 General Office Phone 837-4100 Home Delivery Service 837-4663 or 1 800-654-1231 SUBSCRIPTION RATES (BY CARRIER) Sot 4 Dairy and 1 70 44 20 88 40 Daly 5 Doyt $95 24 70 49 40 Sunday .75 1950 39 00 1 fc 6 mo 1 Moil wbtcnfKKi rate ore higher fhan by comer and ore payable odvance Rat are available upon request.

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"We will show that Barry Seal was the most valuable commodity Ia wmmm COLORTRAK BEV3BDnb25 TV MOF.ITOR WITH DIGITAL CONTROL II I in the government drug prosecu CHANNELOCK KEYBOARD HI-CON 100 COTY PICTURE TUBE QUARTZ CRYSTAL CABLE TUNING AUTOMATIC PICTURE CONTROl tion and was later a man marked for death," Pam Burns said in her opening statement in the trial of Miguel Velez, Bernardo Vasquez i and Luis Carlos yuintero-cmz. i Prosecutors have said they will I seek the death penalty if the three I are convicted. A fourth man will be tried later in what the prosecution described I as a scheme to collect a $500,000 I contract offered bv the Medellin ah cocaine cartel in Colombia to keep FOUR POINTS CENTER Seal from testifying against its leaders. "You will learn that the cartel and the three defendants, to a certain decree, rut a halt to the sys- 1 I bn I nun I 1 11 MinrnTr iDX em." Burns said. i ask you to make whole the system." The defense, however, called Seal a mercenary and said the pros-' editions case was fiction" built on Uie testimony of criminals..