HILL REPORT CASTS DOUBTS ON STORY OF CONTRA PLOT ON U.S. EMBASSY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403850014-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: July 3, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
STAT
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WASHINGTON TIMES
ARTICLE APPEARED 3 July 1986
ON PAE
Hill report casts doubts on story
of Contra plot on U.S. embassy
By James Morrison
THE NMSHINOTON TIMES
The chairman of the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee has dis-
tributed a report to committee mem-
bers containing allegations that two
informants received money or were
encouraged to falsely link Nic-
aragua's anti-communist resistance
and many American supporters to a
lot to blow up an American em-
ssy.
The report, distributed by Indiana
epublican Richard Lugar and
bassy in Costa Rica describing inter-
views with a British, a French and
two American "mercenaries" while
they were imprisoned there on
weapons charges.
The report says that one of the
Americans, Steven Carr, appears to
be a source of information about a
reported plot to blow up the U.S. Em-
bassy in Costa Rica in 1985 and
blame it on Nicaragua's Marxist
Sandinista government.
The report also states that Carr's
cellmate, Englishman Peter Glib-
bery, has alleged that Mr. Carr
accepted money from Martha
Honey, a free-lance journalist in
Costa Rica "'to provide her with a
controversial story."
The first mention of the alleged
mbassy plot, the report states, "ap-
ears to be in a July 1985 article by
Martha Honey."
Ms. Honey and her husband, 'Ibny
Avirgan, also a free-lance journalist,
co-authored a book which contains
broad-based allegations of illegal ac-
tivities by the anti-Sandinista resis-
tance and many rebel supporters.
The couple also has filed a $23.8
million lawsuit against 30 defen-
dants, including the military leader
of the Nicaraguan resistance, anti-
Casto Cuban exiles and American
supporters.
The suit alleges that the defen-
dants were part of a conspiracy in-
volving gun and drug smuggling, the
attempted assassination of a rival
rebel leader, the embassy plot, a plan
to kill U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica
Lewis lhmbs, and the murder of an
informant who first revealed the al-
leged conspiracy.
The allegations have fueled the
political debate in Congress over fi-
nancial aid to the resistance. Sen.
John F Kerry, Massachusetts Demo-
crat, a member of the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee, has been
a leading opponent of the adminis-
tration's efforts and has called for
open hearings into the conspiracy
allegations.
Sen. Lugar's report, titled, "Infor-
mation on Allegations of
Wrongdoing by Contras and Their
American Supporters;' was pre-
pared partly in response to Mr.
Kerry's request for the hearing.
The report states that American
Robert Thompson and Frenchman
Claude Chaffard, two of the "merce-
naries" arrested with Carr, "have re-
ported that Carr took money from
her [Ms. Honey] to make false
statements. Carr himself told U.S.
officials earlier this year that Honey
has tried to get him to admit partici-
pation in various crimes of which he
had no knowledge"
Mr. Avirgan, reached by tele-
phone in Costa Rica, refused to dis-
cuss the allegations raised in the re-
port and accused The Washington
Times of waging a campaign against
him and his wife.
"We're happy to cooperate with
journalists;' he said. "What The
Washington Times is engaged in is
not journalism. You're engaged in a
hostile campaign against us. It's dis-
graceful, and it's not journalism. I
don't want to cooperate in any way
with The Washington Times."
Ms. Honey was not available for
comment. Mr. Glibbery's
whereabouts could not be deter-
mined.
Carr is serving a nine-month jail
sentence in Naples, Fla., for violat-
ing probation on a 1984 conviction
for forgery and grand theft, accord-
ing to the Florida state attorney's of-
fice. Carr, in a telephone interview,
declined to discuss the allegations
and referred a reporter to his at-
torney.
The attorney declined to allow
Carr to be interviewed.
The report questions the validity
of an account of the embassy plot
given by a Cuban-American, Jesus
Garcia, who the report describes as
a "convicted felon awaiting sentenc-
ing in Miami on gun charges."
"Garcia has repeated his charges
. to a number of people. He has
taken a polygraph examination. He
was asked about the existence of an
assassination plot; his answer was
deemed inconclusive. On a related
question, his answer was deemed de-
ceptive;' the report said.
"The legal aid attorney who repre-
sented Garcia at his trial has said
that Garcia never mentioned the plot
until after a meeting Garcia had
with Martha Honey," the report said.
In addition to the Lugar report,
The Times has obtained the State
Department cables upon which the
report was based and which de-
scribe the embassy interviews. The
Times also has obtained another
State Department cable based on an.
FBI interview with the four "merce-
naries" in Costa Rica and copies of
letters written by three of them that
appear to support what they told the
embassy officials.
Carr, in a Jan. 31 letter, said, "Mar-
tha Honey can bite my ... If need be
I can still destroy her and prove we
were fed information and bribed, in
a small way."
The letters were written to John
Hull, an American farmer and
rancher who lives in Costa Rica, sup-
ports the rebels and allows them to
use his air strips to evacuate their
wounded. Mr. Hull, in an telephone
interview from Costa Rica, con-
firmed that the received the letters
and said he believed they were writ-
ten by the three "mercenaries."
The journalists, in their suit,
accused Mr. Hull of being one of the
primary conspirators, but he has de-
nied all of their charges in press in-
terviews.
Mr. Glibbery wrote in a February
letter to Mr. Hull that Mr. Avirgan
tried to get him and Carr to testify at
Mr. Garcia's trial about the alleged
conspiracy.
"Avirgan offered Steve Carr im-
munity from prosecution (on behalf
of the FBI so he says) if Steve was to
testify on Garcia's behalf. When
Steve laughed this off, Avirgan made
the same offer to myself saying,'You
had better think seriously about this
because the FBI is going to indict
you all in the next three weeks; " Mr.
Glibbery wrote.
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.4
He al: xi wrote Mr Hull, "I give you
my word I will not make any more
statements which may harm you or
the org.anization:'
A ca ble to the State Department
filed of ;ter a U.S. embassy official
interviewed Mr. Thompson said the
adventu. rer claimed that, "Carr has
continually lied about events leading
to their arrests and mentioned that
both he and Chaffard had witnessed
Carr accepting money from re-
porter Martha Honey to, he alleges,
make false statements:'
Mr. Thompson in a March 29 let-
ter said that Carr and Mr. Glibbery
were giving regular press inter-
views to other reporters.
"They stop by my [cell] window
frequently on their journeys to and
from their meetings;' he wrote.
"Their current story is that they now
say that all their previous declara-
tions were deliberate lies:'
An April cable from the director
of the FBI tote CIA State Danart-
ment and Secret Service. customs
and Immigration authorities de-
scribed FBI interview wi e
four adventurers.
iey a adamantly denied
knowledge regarding plots to assas-
sinate U.S. Ambassador Lewis
Thmbs or destroy the United States
Embassy in Costa Rica. They all
stated the first they heard about
such plots was in early 1985 from
reporters Martha Honey and Ibny
Avirgan," the cable said.
Mr. Avirgan and Ms. Honey have'
Pursued their conspiracy theory for
a out two years in an attemnt to
prove that the Central Intelligence
Agencanti-Sandinista fund-raisers
in the United States and em-ledanti-
stro Cubans pl otte a May 30,
1984, assassination attempt against
a rival guerrilla leader, en Pas-
tora.
They maintain that the alleged
conspirators planted a bomb in Mr.
Pastora's Nicaraguan rebel camp, La
Penca, during a press conference to
kill Mr. Pastora because he refused
to cooperate with a larger guerrilla
group, the Nicaraguan Democratic
Front (FDN), to open a coordinated
resistance in southern Nicaragua.
The bomb killed eight people. An
additional 38 others were injured, in-
cluding Mr. Pastora and Mr. Avirgan.
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