WASHINGTON -- After less than a day and a half, the prosecution rested its case today in the murder conspiracy trial of ex-CIA agent Edwin Wilson, charged with plotting for $1 million an attempt to assassinate an opponent of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy.
Chief Prosecutor Lawrence Barcella told the jury of seven women and five men and U.S. District Court judge John Pratt at 11:22 a.m. EST his presentation was completed.
Barcella offered just three witnesses but had 37 exhibits he said link Wilson and co-defendant Frank Terpil with a plot to assassinate Umar (cq) Abdullah Muhayshi, a former charter member of the Libyan Revolutionary Council who defected to Tunisia and then Egypt over policy differences with Khadafy. Muhayshi was not assassinated.
Terpil, a former CIA employee, is still at large. He was last reported in Lebanon about a year ago.
Barcella asked for the maximum sentence on two conspiracy charges for Wilson, five years on each count for a total of 10 years. Barcella told reporters a fine may also be included if the jury finds Wilson guilty. Wilson, 54, faces 32 years in prison and large fines from previous convictions on charges of smuggling arms and explosives to Libya.
Barcella's final witness was John Damis, a former State Department Middle East expert now teaching Middle East history and policy at Portland State University in Oregon.
Damis said after Muhayshi's defection in 1975, Khadafy did everything possible to lure his former colleague back to Libya and when that failed sent 'hit squads' to Egypt to kidnap or kill him. He said the dispute between the two was over economic policy, with Khadafy wanting to spend more for Soviet arms and to foment trouble abroad.
Immediately after Barcella's plea, defense attorney Patrick Wall called to the witness stand Kenneth Conklin, a Washington ato2oey who once represented Wilson in business matters. Questioning of Conklin was interrupted when Pratt called a lunch recess.
Wall's first questions attempted to bring out discrepancies between what Cuban-American Rafael Quintero told a grand jury in 1979 and later the Justice Department about his part in the plot as compared to what Quintero told Conklin in 1980. The questions sought to prove that Terpil actually made the assassination proposal to Quintero.
Quintero testified Wednesday Wilson promised him $1 million dollars to 'kill a man,' later identified as Muhayshi. Quintero, who once engaged in anti-Cuban activities for the CIA, said he thought Wilson was still on an intelligence assignment and the 'target' was the notorious, international terrorist known as Carlos.
Prosecutors in Wilson's third trial said Wednesday that it was Terpil's error that tipped federal officials to the plan to assassinate Muhayshi. They said Terpill erred in telling the intended triggerman he would work with Soviet agents, a factor that sent the anti-communist Cuban-American to talk with federal officials and his former CIA case officer. Wall has maintained that Wilson was still working for the CIA when he began his dealings with Libya in 1976.
Quintero, 42, said he had first met Wilson years ago during planning of various actions against Cuba. Wilson is said to have played a major role in the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961.
Quintero testified that on a visit to Washington to discuss 'business,' Wilson introduced him to Terpil, who showed him photographs of a man and said, 'We want to kill him. ... It's worth up to $1 million.'
Quintero said he recruited two friends, Raol Villaverde and his brother Rafael, Cuban-Americans who also had worked for the CIA. Quintero and Rafael Villaverde later met with Wilson and Terpil in London and were told the intended victim was to be the Libyan dissident.
But then Terpil told Quintero and Villaverde that while in Libya they would meet Soviet explosive experts and handle Soviet equipment.
The Cuban-Americans are violently anti-Soviet, prosecutors said, and Quintero testified that when the Moscow link surfaced, they decided 'we were not going ahead.'
Quintero testified that he reported the incident to his former-CIA case officer, who was still active in the agency. The CIA notified the FBI and the Justice Department and the investigation of the plot began.
