‘Duped’ American Jailed in Spain for Carrying Drugs

An American who says he was duped into carrying cocaine into Spain was convicted of drug trafficking today and sentenced to six years and a day in prison, a spokesman for the U.S. Consulate in Barcelona said.

Conan Owen, 23, of Annandale, Va., was found guilty by the three-judge tribunal that heard his case in a one-day trial March 26, more than a year after his arrest.

In addition to the prison term, Owen was fined $18,000, consulate spokesman Peter Cecere said.

Cecere said the three-judge panel headed by Judge Jose Presencia Rubio acquitted Owen on charges of possessing contraband.

U.S. Regrets Action

In Washington, Justice Department spokesman Terry H. Eastland said Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III “regrets very much this action by the Spanish court.

“I think it’s important to stress that we continue to believe today, as we have before, in Mr. Owen’s innocence and we continue to hope that he will ultimately be exonerated,” Eastland said.

Owen was arrested March 13, 1987, at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport after customs agents found 4.13 pounds of cocaine in a false-bottomed suitcase he had checked through on a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Santiago, Chile, via Amsterdam.

He has been detained at Barcelona’s Modelo Prison since his arrest.

At Owen’s trial, Presencia Rubio refused to admit as evidence results of a polygraph test administered at the request of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration--evidence the defense said would prove Owen’s innocence.

Owen will be eligible for parole after serving half the sentence. The year he has served in prison will be subtracted from his term.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do, whether we’ll appeal,” Owen’s father, Ernest, said in a telephone interview. “It’s a Catch 22. How long does an appeal take here? Maybe a prison transfer would be shorter. Anyway, you know he’s innocent.”

Ernest Owen and his wife, Raquel, arrived in Barcelona on March 24.

Conan Owen testified he had been contacted in the United States by Jorge Barahona about a four-day job taking photographs in Chile and Spain for the Sonsora tourist agency of Mexico City.

Contact Makes Plea Bargain

On Feb. 5, Barahona, an Ecuadorean-born naturalized American, received a two-year suspended sentence in an Alexandria, Va., federal court on a drug conspiracy charge after reaching a plea bargain agreement with Assistant U.S. Dist. Atty. Justin Williams.

Williams testified for the defense at Owen’s trial that Barahona told him “Conan Owen had no knowledge that there was cocaine in the suitcase he carried into Barcelona airport March 13.”

Owen said Barahona had given him a suitcase to take to Santiago which he was told contained tourist brochures.

He said he carried the same or a similar suitcase from Santiago to Barcelona.

Owen testified he probably had been naive or stupid but added “that is not a crime.”