ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The first trial of ex-CIA agent Edwin Wilson, accused of smuggling arms to Libyan terrorists, is set to start Monday with a federal judge's decision to deny a defense motion for a last-minute delay.
The order by U.S. District Judge Oren Lewis came Friday. Wilson, 54, is charged with illegally supplying a Libyan intelligence officer in Europe with four revolvers and a Colt M-16 automatic rifle.
One of Wilson's lawyers, John Keats, said the motion for a continuance was filed because defense attorneys were having difficulty preparing his case.
'We have not received security clearances and it's made it extremely difficult for us to confer with our client with regard to classified information,' Keats said.
In court papers filed earlier, Wilson's lawyers warned, 'If the government makes us go to trial, my client will be forced to reveal information that will shake the CIA to its foundations.'
Monday's trial of Wilson, 54 and a veteran of CIA's clandestine service, is the first of four on his alleged illegal activities for Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy after he left the agency in 1971.
Two trials are pending in the District of Columbia, the first beginning Nov. 22, and one is scheduled Nov. 29 in Houston, although it may be postponed. In addition, a grand jury in Denver is investigating possible links between Wilson and the 1980 shooting and wounding of a dissident Libyan student in Colorado.
Earlier this week, Lewis denied several motions filed by defense lawyers to dismiss the Virginia case.
Wilson's lawyers claim he was tricked into leaving his villa in Libya and forced back into U.S. jurisdiction from the Dominican Republic without benefit of a formal extradition.
But in his opinion, Lewis said, 'The facts indicate Wilson voluntarily boarded the plane to Madrid and from there flew to the Dominican Republic.'
The judge also gave the government permission to call as witnesses a top Pentagon official and the former head of the National Security Agency.
They are retired Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, former head of the super-secret National Security Agency and former CIA deputy director, and Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near Eastern, African and South Asian affairs.
