Ex-Atty. Gen. Bell Agrees to Defend Hasenfus at Trial
Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Griffin Bell said today that he will represent the American survivor of a rebel supply flight shot down in Nicaragua. He said he agreed to take the case because the man’s family could not find another prominent lawyer.
Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., faces trial by a Nicaraguan tribunal on charges of working for the Central Intelligence Agency in supplying contra rebels. (Story, Page 9.)
Bell, who headed the Justice Department under former President Jimmy Carter, said an attorney for Hasenfus’ family asked him last weekend to represent Hasenfus.
‘Public Prominence’
“I thought there were other people more able to do it than me, but they came back Wednesday and said they couldn’t find anyone else,” Bell said today in an interview with Atlanta radio station WGST. “I thought he was entitled to have a lawyer, someone of public prominence.”
Bell, a member of the Atlanta law firm of King and Spalding, said he has not spoken with Hasenfus and knows nothing about the Nicaraguan legal system. A lawyer in Nicaragua was being sought, he said.
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