Downed Plane’s Survivor to Be Put on Trial, Nicaragua Envoy Says in U.N. Speech

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel d’Escoto told the General Assembly on Friday that the surviving crew member of a C-123 cargo plane shot down while ferrying weapons to U.S.-backed rebels in Nicaragua will be put on trial by his government.

D’Escoto said that Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., “will be brought before the courts and tried in accordance with Nicaraguan laws with all guarantees of due process.”

Nicaraguan officials had said earlier that it was likely that criminal charges would be filed against Hasenfus, but D’Escoto’s statement was the firmest announcement that he will definitely stand trial. If Hasenfus were convicted of counterrevolutionary activities, he could be sentenced to 30 years in jail, the maximum penalty in Nicaragua.

D’Escoto delivered a slashing attack on the United States, accusing the Reagan Administration of seeking to carry out “the systematic slaughter of our people.”

‘Alarming Trend’

D’Escoto, a Roman Catholic priest who was suspended from his priestly duties by the Vatican for refusing a church order to get out of politics, called the plane’s incursion a “new threat,” saying, “This is personnel from the CIA getting involved directly.” He added: “This is Vietnam all over again. What comes after American advisers? These advisers are not just advisers. They are doing the job themselves. This is the most alarming trend in the Reagan policies.”

He belabored the United States for rejecting a World Court pronouncemnt that it was guilty of aggression against the Marxist-led Sandinista regime. And he recalled that Nicaragua is now pressing action in the court against Honduras and Costa Rica, which Managua accuses of helping Washington support the contras battling the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan countryside.

D’Escoto appealed to Reagan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz to stop the war, “in the name of God, in whom you say you believe and in whom my people and I do indeed believe.”

“We hold you responsible, and one day you will have to account for your actions before the Lord, for all the blood that has been shed and all the suffering inflicted on so many innocents as a result of your insatiable lust for domination,” he added.

Barnyard Epithet

At a news conference after his speech, the Nicaraguan used a barnyard epithet to describe State Department assertions that the remains of two crew members killed when the C-123 was shot down in southern Nicaragua were “dumped” at the U.S. Embassy’s gates in Managua.

“They were taken to the embassy, and the people at the embassy said, ‘No way can you carry them in,’ so they were left,” D’Escoto said of the remains.

He also denounced as lies reports that U.S. consular officials have been denied access to Hasenfus.