Plea by Meese Fails; Spain Jails American

An American photographer who insisted that he was duped by a drug ring was convicted Tuesday of drug trafficking and sentenced to six years and one day in prison despite a personal plea on his behalf by U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.

A three-judge tribunal of the Barcelona Provincial Court said the prosecution proved that Conan Owen, 23, of Annandale, Va., knew there was cocaine in the suitcase he carried on a flight from Santiago, Chile, to Barcelona on March 13, 1987.

The judges also fined the free-lance photographer $18,083 but acquitted him of contraband charges because the cocaine had not gone beyond the Barcelona airport’s customs inspection area.

Owen’s attorney, Ana Campa, said she planned to appeal.

Owen was a 1984 summer intern in Vice President George Bush’s office, though he had never met Bush. He has has been held without bail since March 16, 1987, and would be eligible for parole in three years, including the time he has already spent in prison.

He told the court at his March 26 trial he believed he was taking a suitcase full of tourist brochures from Washington, D.C. to Barcelona for a travel agency that hired him for a four-day free-lance photo assignment.

“I could have been stupid, but that is not a crime,” Owen testified.

Defense witnesses, including an assistant U.S. attorney and a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, testified that information obtained from a plea bargain agreement with a defendant in a U.S. case showed Owen had been used unwittingly as a courier for a Washington-based cocaine-smuggling ring.

The judges said the prosecution was correct in emphasizing the questionable nature of evidence obtained through a plea bargain. Plea bargaining does not exist in Spain.

In Washington, Meese issued a statement saying the Department of Justice “regrets the decision.”

sh Hope for Exoneration

“While we respect the Spanish justice system, we continue to believe in Mr. Owen’s innocence and hope that he will ultimately be exonerated,” he said.

On Feb. 9, Meese personally delivered documents related to evidence from the plea bargain to Spanish Justice Minister Fernando Ledesma during a visit to Madrid on an unrelated matter.