PILOT FLYING ARMS TO CONTRAS HAD ACCOUNT AT A SWISS BANK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706600001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 29, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706600001-5
2
TIM NEW YORK TIMES
ON ~~OE n29 November 1986
Pilot Flying Arms to Contras
Had Account at a Swiss Bank
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
Special to The New York Times
STAT
ZURICH, Nov. 28 - The co-pilot of a
plane shot down last month while car-
rying arms to Nicaraguan rebels had a
Swiss bank account. But the bank said
today that the account had nothing to
do with recent Iran arms shipments.
The Union Bank of Switzerland said
Jean Paul Cuche, whose name ap-
peared on a business card, together
with an account number, in the plane's
wreckage, was an assistant-vice presi-
dent at its Cornavin branch in Geneva.
Responding to reports that the ac-
count may have figured in the Iran
weapons deal, the bank said an investi-
gation by its security division showed
"no connection with the transactions of
Iran and the United States."
Swiss banks have drawn much atten-
tion since the disclosure that as much
as $30 million from Iran arms sales di-
verted to the Nicaraguan rebels passed
through Swiss accounts.
Awkward for the Swiss
The Iran deal is unusually awkward
for Switzerland, because of the use of
Swiss bank accounts for the money-
laundering part of the operation and
because Switzerland has represented
American interests in Teheran since
the hostage crisis.
There is also evidence that Carib-
bean subsidiaries of Geneva-based
companies were used for the secret
purchase of aircraft for the Nicara-
guan rebels, also known as contras.
The second-ranking Swiss Foreign
Ministry officer, Edouard Brunner, dis-
cussed the secret weapons deal in talks
with Secretary of State George P.
Shultz in Washington last week. Later
he denied that Switzerland knew in ad-
vance.
Jorg Kistler, a Justice Ministry
spokesman in Bern, said the Govern-
ment had begun investigating a Swiss
link, and had not been asked by Wash-
ington to do so.
Union Bank shielded Mr. Cuche from
reporters today, and telephone calls to
his home were not answered.
Account Opened In 1981
Bank investigators evidently learned
that Mr. Cuche, then the bank's cash-
ier, opened an account in 1981 in the
name of Wallace B. Sawyer, the name
of the co-pilot in the crash of the C-123
transport plane Oct. 5. The account ap-
pears not to have been used since 1984.
Mr. Sawyer was killed in the plane
crash; the sole survivor was Eugene'
Hasenfus, who has been imprisoned in
Nicaragua.
Mr. Sawyer was a longtime pilot who
worked for Southern Air Transport,
until switching to Corporate Air Serv-
ices, the apparent front for the air sup-
plies to the contras.
Southern Air Transport
Qwneci by the Central I telli ence
A2ency and has more recently been
used for clandestine ?r12hts to Central
America.
Union Bank said its investigation had
yielded no aooarent link with the C.I.A.
Nicaragua has figured in domestic
Swiss politics of late, both because of
the presence of many Swiss volunteer
social workers in the Central American
country and because of controversy
here over an unsuccessful effort by the
anti-Sandinista rebels to set up a quasi-
diplomatic link to United Nations or-
ganizations based in Geneva.
The effort, which was undertaken by
a former Nicaraguan diplomat who de-
fected and joined the political wing of
the rebel Nicaraguan Democratic
Force, Jaime Pasquier, had the broad
backing of American diplomats in
Switzerland and local conservative
political leaders.
To finance mpch of this activity, the
contras and their Swiss backers ap-
pear to have bank accounts in Switzer-
land, land, but it remains unclear whether,
the accounts played any role in the Iran
deal.
Mr. Pasquier is said to have been
sent to Geneva by Managua about 1980
as head of the Nicaraguan mission
there.
Defected and Fled to U.S.
Two years later he defected and fled
to the United States. He joined contra
leaders in Florida who prevailed on
him to return to Switzerland to repre-
sent the rebels in Geneva.
His efforts are said to have faltered
on the resistance of local groupings,
such as the Socialist Party, who par-
layed events like the killing of two
Swiss volunteers by rebels this year
into popular opposition to the contra
presence here.
Mr. Pasquier is said to have left
Switzerland for Costa Rica last month.
One of his Swiss supporters, a Zurich
businessman named Alexander Eug-
ster, continues to promote the contra
cause through an obscure group known
as the Association for a Democratic
Nicaragua.
Mr. Eugster, who in a telephone con-
versation described himself as an ac-
quaintance of Adolfo Calero, a Nicara-
guan rebel leader, cooperates occa
sionally with Peter Sager, a Member of
Parliament from the Swiss People's
Party, a conservative agrarian group-
ing.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706600001-5