HOUSTON -- A former employee of ex-CIA agent Edwin Wilson testified Saturday that Wilson threatened to kill both him and federal prosecutor Larry Barcella if he returned from Libya to testify against his ex-boss.
'He (Wilson) told me he could not advise me because it would be an obstruction of justice,' John Heath testified Wilson told him two weeks ago. 'But he said if I talked to Barcella, he was dead and so was I.'
It was the first time the alleged contract killings of prosecutors and witnesses in the Wilson case have been mentioned in open court. In addition to the chief prosecutor, assistant U.S. attorney Carol Bruce and four other witnesses were named on a hit list allgedly handwritten by Wilson from his New York jail cell last month.
Heath, who spent 21 years in the military as a bomb specialist, said he went to work for Wilson in 1976. He described an incident in which he was ordered by Wilson to hand deliver two buckets of a highly exlosive putty-like substances to the Libyan embassy in London. The containers were smuggled from Libya through Rotterdam and into London. Dutch officials have been monitoring the trial in the Houston courtroom this week.
Wilson, 54, is being tried for conspiring to smuggle explosives to Libyan terrorists. He maintains he was working for the federal government at the time, feeding top secret information to the CIA. Federal officials deny Wilson was working for them.
Heath quit working for Wilson about two weeks ago. During the time he was employed by Wilson his code name was 'Silver Fox,' probably referring to his silver-white hair.
He described how Wilson had requested him to make letter bombs, but he refused.
'It was against my moral principles. I indicated I definitely did not want to do this,' Heath said, explaining it is equally dangerous to build a letter bomb than to open one.
'He said if you help me out this one last time, buddy, I'll make it worth your while,' Heath said. He also said Wilson promised to 'make me a millionaire like he did (former aide Douglas) Schlacter.'
Wilson is accused of shipping to Tripoli, Libya, 42,300 pounds of highly sensitive explosives called C-4. The puttylike material would not explode on impact, but needed a detonator or heavy duty blasting cap for explosion.
Wilson, who worked for the government between 1955 and 1970, was convicted in Alexandria, Va., in November of smuggling arms to Libya and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $200,000. He faces a 17-year sentence and $145,000 fine in this case.
Jerome Brower, a weapons expert from Pomona, Calif., an unindicted co-conspirator, said he filled an order for Wilson for the explosives. Brower said Wilson confided he made profits in excess of $6 million from his military arms transactions with Libyan terrorists.
Brower told federal prosecutor Karen Morrissette that he purchased explosives from three companies: one in Canada, Louisiana and Texas. He paid $250,325 for 54,000 pounds of the material and sold Wilson 42,300 pounds for $588,500. He said the difference between what he paid and charged was not all profit because he had many expenses, including $80,000 for transporting the explosives from a Houston warehouse to Libya.
Brower said he did not claim on his personal income tax any profits from the deal until his release from jail. He pleaded guilty to a munitions conspiracy charge and was sentenced to prison. He served four months.
Wilson, a multi-millionaire who solemnly sat next to his Washington lawyer Herald Fahringer and Houston attorney Marian Rosen, probably will not testify in this trial.
U.S. Attorney Dan Hedges said Wilson was not working for the government, but made the transaction with the Libyans to 'put money in his own pockets.'
The courtroom where the tall, gray-haired Wilson is being tried has been monitored this week by no fewer than 10 armed federal agents. Each door, the jury, the judge and federal prosecutors are guarded by a U.S. Marshal.
The trial is expected to last more than a week and has been adjourned until Monday. The seven women and five men on the jury have been sequestered since the begining of the trial. The members of the panel will remain in hotel rooms away from their home until a verdict has been reached.
He still faces two more trials in Washington on charges he conspired to murder a Libyan dissident and allegedly made another illegal arms shipment.
