ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- CIA renegade Edwin Wilson went on trial Monday, with prosecutors charging the ex-agent smuggled four handguns and an M-16 rifle to Libya in a bid to win a $22 million arms supply contract with Moammar Khadafy.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Theodore Greenberg told a packed courtroom the millionaire former fugitive 'willfully' violated U.S. arms export laws after leaving government service and setting up a private business in Libya.
But defense lawyer Herald Fahringer said the 'so-called gun-running' was done at the instruction of the CIA to find out what weapons Khadafy needed that Libya was not getting from the Soviets.
The testimony before a jury of seven women and five men was scheduled to resume again Tuesday morning. If convicted of all the charges, Wilson, 54, could be fined $245,000 and sentenced to 44 years in prison.
The 6-foot-4 defendant, who was brought to the building in leg irons and handcuffs but showed up in court without the restraints, also faces numerous other charges across the Potomac River in Washington and in Houston. He is accused of being an unregistered foreign agent of Libya, conspiring to set up a terrorist training camp in that country and illegally exporting 20,000 tons of plastic explosives.
Wilson's attorneys argued their client, who left the CIA in 1971, was still feeding information to the agency while he was dealing with the Libyans. In an apparent attempt to support the claim, they questioned former Wilson aide Roberta Barnes.
She testified her boss told her in Libya in early 1981 he had discovered the Libyans were learning how to acquire an atom bomb.
But the judge ordered the testimony struck from the record on grounds the events occurred almost two years after the alleged arms violations, and the defense had not established a link between the two issues.
Ms. Barnes, who handled accounts for Wilson's export business in London, also testified she paid $10,000 to another Wilson associate for the purchase of an M-16. She said Wilson's company landed a multimillion-dollar contract to supply 5,000 M-16s to Libya three months later.
Paul Cyr, a former associate of Wilson's, testified he got the M-16 as a gift from an Army lieutenant who received it from the head of the Army's M-16 procurement program during the Vietnam War.
Cyr said he believed it was an inoperative 'sample' that had been plugged so it couldn't be fired. He said when Wilson called him from London asking if he had an M-16 available, he agreed to get the weapon for $10,000 but said he considered that sum a deposit and expected the gun to be returned.
Another witness described how he purchased two .38-caliber Smith and Wesson guns in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1979 and later that night bought another .38 and a .357-magnum.
Testimony showed those weapons then were sold to an associate of Wilson's, who transported them to Wilson's Upperville, Va., estate.
Reginald Slocombe, a former shipping agent for Wilson, testified he picked up four handguns from Wilson's Virginia estate in 1979, packed them in a tool box and flew them to London and Rotterdam, where he hired a car and drove to Bonn. Slocombe said he agreed to cooperate in return for immunity from prosecution.
In accordance with Wilson's instructions, he said he gave the guns to a Libyan woman near the Libyan Embassy in Bonn. Later, he said he performed the same mission in smuggling an M-16 in a footlocker loaded also with iron bars from Dulles to Europe. He said an intermediary received $10,000 for the M-16.
The government plans to call numerous intelligence officials during the trial, including Douglas Schlacter and Theodore Shackley of the CIA.
Fahringer said Monday Wilson was furnishing intelligence about Soviet technology and weapons 'all the time' during his first two years in Libya, reporting to Schlacter and Shackley.
Wilson was captured in June, ending his two years as a fugitive, after a former associate persuaded him to fly to the Dominican Republic, where he was put on a plane to New York and arrested.
Wilson's attorneys warned in advance that if Wilson were brought to trial, he would reveal information 'that will shake the CIA to its foundations.'
