Stolen Hakim File Returned, Attorney Says

A lawyer who told authorities last week that his file on Iranian arms dealer Albert A. Hakim had been stolen in a burglary said Friday that it has mysteriously been returned.

Santa Clara County sheriff’s investigators said they would continue their investigation of the reported burglary at the office of Silicon Valley lawyer Horace E. Dunbar.

“Right now we’re kind of at a crossroads. We’re not sure what to do,” said Lt. T. K. Davis, a sheriff’s spokesman.

Hakim, owner of Stanford Technology Corp. here, has been named a key figure in the transfer of funds to Nicaraguan rebels from the controversial sale of U.S. arms to Iran last year.

Authorities were alerted to the break-in at Dunbar’s Cupertino office last Saturday night by a silent alarm. Dunbar initially said computer disks listing his files were missing, along with Hakim’s file that contained information about the arms deal.

He later found the computer disks and now says that the file contains only information on a deal in which Hakim’s company sold a security system to a South Korean nuclear power plant, together with a few press clippings about Hakim’s current difficulties.

In a telephone interview, Dunbar said he suspected he knew the burglars’ identities and after threatening to tell authorities, was instructed by them to go to a San Francisco International Airport locker on Thursday.

There he found part of the file, he said. He returned Friday to retrieve the final portion of the file. In exchange, he said, he agreed not to tell detectives about the people he suspects of committing the act.

“It’s really bizarre,” Dunbar said.

He said he declined to allow sheriff’s investigators to read the Hakim file, invoking the attorney-client privilege that allows such dealings to be kept confidential. The sheriff’s department is testing the file folder for fingerprints. The contents have been sealed and are being stored.