Slain Engineer’s Colleagues in Nicaragua Fault U.S. for Death : Join Sandinistas in Condemning Contra Support

American colleagues of the Oregon engineer killed in the war between the government and U.S.-backed rebels joined Sandinista officials today in blaming the Reagan Administration for his death.

The body of 27-year-old Benjamin Ernest Linder of Portland was in this provincial capital and a ceremony was held in his honor. Dozens of wreaths surrounded the casket of the red-bearded engineer, who came to Nicaragua in 1985.

Nicaraguan officials said guerrillas killed Linder and two Sandinista militiamen Tuesday at La Camaleona, a village about 20 miles away in neighboring Jinotega province. (Story, Page 4.)

First Volunteer Killed

Linder was the first American volunteer working for the Sandinistas to be killed in the contras’ 5-year-old war against the leftist government. Seven European volunteers have been killed since 1983.

Manuel Espinoza Henriquez, spokesman for President Daniel Ortega, said in Managua that Linder left a letter asking to be buried in Nicaragua if he was killed, and his family had agreed. A government spokesman said Linder’s relatives were not expected to arrive until Thursday.

About 50 foreign volunteers, most of them Americans, paid their last respects at the ceremony today in the office of Carlos Zamora, the central government’s representative in Matagalpa.

U.S. Support Cited

“We hold the Reagan Administration and the U.S. Congress fully and directly responsible for the murder of Benjamin Ernest Linder and call on the people of the U.S. to demand an immediate end to all U.S. support for this unjust war,” said a statement drafted by the other American volunteers.

An estimated 200 American volunteers are in Nicaragua as volunteers. Most say they work here either because they oppose U.S. policy toward Nicaragua or because they simply want to help.

In Washington, a White House spokesman said that the United States regrets the death of Linder, but he and others like him should know they are “in harm’s way.”

The Administration has not yet received official word on the circumstances of his death from the government, spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

Warning Issued

“We’re very concerned about the death of any American,” Fitzwater said, but “Americans should be aware of the danger involved in traveling in countries where there is internal revolution and guerrilla activity and strife of any number of kinds.”

Nicaraguan officials said Foreign Minister Miguel d’Escoto sent a protest note to Secretary of State George P. Shultz saying the attack was carried out “by a counterrevolutionary group under contract to the U.S. government.”

He said it “makes clear once again the terrorist and criminal nature of the acts promoted by the Administration of the United States within its bloody official policy of state terrorism, a practice that has been condemned by the international community.”

Linder was a member of NICA, a pro-Nicaragua group based in Bellingham, Wash., NICA member Tom Voorhees said by telephone from his home in Clinton, Wash.