Soldier Of Fortune Dies After Talking To Investigators
by Vince Bielski and Dennis Bernstein
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SOLDIER OF FORTUNE DIES MYSTERIOUSLY AFTER TALKING TO CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATORS
by Vince Bielski and Dennis Bernstein
A county coroner in Los Angeles has yet to announce the cause of death of
Steven Carr, a 27-year-old U.S. mercenary who has provided Congress with much
of what it knows about weapons shipments to the contras. Had Carr lived, he
was also expected to testified in federal court against 29 contra supporters
allegedly involved in cocaine trafficking, an assassination attempt on former
contra leader Eden Pastora and a scheme to kill U.S Ambassador to Costa Rica
Lewis Tambs.
While Detective Mel Arnold of the Los Angeles Police Department said the
department is investigating the possibility that Carr was murdered, at this
point he said there doesn't appear to be any evidence of "foul play." But in
the days before his death, Carr told several people that he feared he would be
assassinated. He was "very paranoid and frightened" because of his role as a
witness, Carr's sister Ann of Naples, Fla., said.
Here is what the police are saying about Carr's death. He died at 4 am on
December 13 in a parking lot near his friend's apartment in Van Nuys, Calif.,
where he was staying. In the predawn hours on this Saturday morning, while
his friend, Jacqueline Scott, was asleep, Carr left the apartment for an
unknown reason. After spending an undetermined amount of time outside, Carr
began making noise which awoke Scott. Arnold said he could not describe the
type of noise Carr was making. Scott found Carr in the parking lot, who was
"distressed and having coordination problems." Soon after he died from a
"probable cocaine overdose." Asked if the police found any physical evidence
of cocaine use in the area of the apartment or parking lot, Arnold said "no
comment."
Dan Sheehan, an attorney with the Christic Institute in Washington which
filed the law suit against the 29 contra supporter, said Carr used cocaine,
but called him "an educated user." Martha Honey, a reporter for the BBC,
became friends with Carr while he was a mercenary in Costa Rica. She said Carr
was not the type of person who would kill himself because he was under
pressure. "Stevie was a survivor. He had this ability to get himself in
trouble but he always seemed to bounce back. He had a great sense of humor."
The source of his fears were not just the contra supporters whose alleged
crimes he revealed, but also the U.S. government. Carr said that while he
was in Costa Rica, U.S. embassy officials threatened to jail him if he
squealed on their contra operation in Costa Rica.
In April 1985 Carr was arrested by Costa Rican authorities for violating
the country's neutrality and sent to prison. Carr was one of several
mercenaries based in northern Costa Rica on land owned and managed by a U.S.
citizen and reported CIA operative named John Hull. Evidence from several
sources suggests that the contras operate what amounts to a military base on
property controlled by Hull as well as an airbase for the movement of cocaine
from Columbia into the United States.
While in jail, Carr spilled the beans about the contra operation. To
reporters, he claimed that Hull had told him that Hull was the CIA liaison to
the contras and was receiving $10,000 a month from the National Security
Council to help finance the operation. Carr told Honey why he was revealing
such secrets: "Carr said that the mercenaries had been led to believe that
their mercenary activity was sanctioned by top U.S. military and Costa Rican
officials. He was extremely bitter at having been arrested."
Honey compiled information from Carr and other sources into a book
focusing on the role of Hull and other contra supporters in the May 1984
assassination attempt against Pastora in Nicaragua in which a bomb explosion
killed eight people and injured Pastora. Hull sued Honey, and her colleague
Tony Avirgan, for libel in May 1986. Carr received a subpoena to appear at the
trial, where he was to be a key witness for the reporters' defense.
On May 16, Carr was released from jail. He later described the events
which took place in his life over the course of the next week to Honey and an
U.S. congressional aide involved in an investigation of the arms supply
network to the contras.
Carr said that Hull bailed him out of jail as a way of persuading him to
testify on Hull's behalf. Hull requested that Carr testify that the reporters
forced him to make the charges against Hull, Carr said.
That same day, Carr said he went to the U.S. embassy to determine why he
was arrested for participating in a war that the U.S. supports. He said he met
with two officials, Kirk Kotula, the counsel general and John Jones, the
acting chief of the consulute.
According to Honey's notes of her conversation with Carr about his
meeting with the officials, Carr said: "The officials told me they knew all
about Hull's contra operation and they had me call him. He picked up the phone
instantly, as if he had been waiting for my call.
"They said if I go to court and testify in your behalf I'll go to jail
whether I tell the truth or not. I had no choice in the matter. The embassy
told me to get the hell out of Dodge or I'd go back to La Reforma prison.
They told me that the bus to Panama leaves at 7:30 pm and to be on it," he
said.
Carr spent the next three days staying at Honey's house. On night of May
19, Carr left the house to visit a friend, and the following day, the U.S.
embassy told the court that Carr was in their custody and that he would appear
at the trial, Honey said. However, Carr said on May 20, following U.S.
embassy orders, he took a bus to Panama, and with the help to the U.S. embassy
there, flew to Miami a few days later. Upon his return, Carr was put in jail
in Naples, Fla., for a prior offense.
Kotula said he had talked with Carr, but denied the he had threatened him
or forced him to leave Costa Rica. "That's not true, at least by me. I did not
threaten him with any such thing. I couldn't do that, what would be the
possible motive. I can't put people in jail and I can't get people out of
jail.
"I tried to convince Steve Carr when I first met him not to go and join
up with some bunch of guys. He was nothing but a overgrown child who had read
too many John Wayne comic books."
Jonathan Winer, an aide to Sen. John Kerry D-Mass., said the Senator's
office is investigating the matter. "There are obviously some very serious
questions regarding the U.S. embassy's role in Steven Carr leaving Costa
Rica," he said.
After Carr's return to the U.S., congressional investigators said they
had planned on bringing him before Congress. His testimony, based on his
participation on a March 6, 1985 arms shipment from Fort Lauderdale to
Ilogango Air Base in El Salvador, would have linked Felix Rodriguez--the
ex-CIA agent who reportedly met with Donald Gregg, aide to Vice President
George Bush--to that weapons shipment, Sheehan said.
"He is the guy that can prove that the March 6 shipment of weapons that
flew out of the Fort Lauderdale Airport went to Ilopango airport," said
Sheehan. "He witnessed and can identify Felix Rodriguez as the guy who off
loaded the weapons to smaller planes which were then flown to Hull's ranch in
Costa Rica."
In early 1986, Carr and two other eye-witnesses told federal authorities
that several major players in the arms supply network were involved in the
shipment, including Tom Posey, head of the mercenary group Civilian Materiel
Assistance, Robert Owen, reportedly a liaison to fired Lt. Col. Oliver North,
and Hull, Sheehan said.
With no criminal indictment by October, Sheehan alleged before a
congressional committee that the Justice Department had engaged in a "willfull
conspiracy...to obstruct justice....A number of telephone calls were then
placed to Mr. Kellner (the U.S. Attorney in Miami) personally by Edwin
Meese...instructing Mr. Kellner 'to proceed very, very, very slowly' in any
investigation of this case." Kellner has said he has talked with Meese about
the case, but denied Sheehan's allegation.
A grand jury has recently formed in Miami to reportedly hear evidence
about the March 6 weapons shipment. But the one person who could have provided
the grand jury with an eye-witness account that the weapons were transported
from U.S. soil to El Salvador--evidence which is essential in making a case
that the U.S. Neutrality Act and the Arms Export Control Act were violated--is
now dead.
"A great deal of the information Carr provided did check out. It will now
be harder for anyone to bring a prosecution with Steven's testimony now
unavailable, and I think that is very unfortunate," Winer said.
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