Walsh Scores Tactics in Iran-Contra Case

Independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh charged in a court filing Friday that lawyers for Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and others in the Iran-Contra affair are employing “unprecedented” delaying tactics that could make scheduling a trial for the men “nearly impossible.”

In responding to legal attacks on the criminal indictments of North, John M. Poindexter and Albert A. Hakim, Walsh offered U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell a plan to speed their trial by ending a debate over the use in court of so-called “immunized” evidence.

The debate, which the defendants launched Thursday in a lengthy court brief, only conceals a strategy “to use pretrial proceedings to delay their trial by jury and obtain unparalleled discovery” of Walsh’s prosecution strategy, Walsh said.

Abuse of Protection

North, Hakim and Poindexter contended Thursday that Walsh’s investigators abused their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination by collecting evidence “tainted” by testimony they gave Congress under agreements that it would not be used against them later.

Those agreements allow Walsh to use in court any evidence gathered before the men began appearing before Congress last spring. However, he must prove that evidence obtained after that point was not derived from the three men’s immunized testimony.

To bolster that argument, lawyers for the three asked Walsh to turn over documents showing the origin and use of every scrap of evidence the independent counsel might use in court. They also revealed plans to interview Walsh’s employees, their friends, relatives and business contacts in an effort to show that the investigation is colored by publicity from last summer’s congressional hearings.

In a response Friday to those charges, attorney Herbert J. Stern contended on Walsh’s behalf that the debate over immunized evidence is unnecessary because Walsh can prove the “overwhelming majority” of his case using evidence assembled before the men were given immunity.

Immunity Grants

Walsh obtained investigative records on the affair from the Senate Intelligence Committee, the attorney general’s office and the presidential commission headed by former Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.) well before North, Hakim and Poindexter won immunity grants from Congress, he stated.

“The government, in short, had no need for any immunized testimony to focus or aid its investigation,” he said. To demonstrate that, Stern said, Walsh is willing to give Gesell proof before an item of evidence is introduced in court that the item was not derived from the men’s immunized testimony.

Stern also said Walsh is willing to drop a potentially drawn-out legal battle over whether any of the three men’s congressional testimony was in fact freely given and could be used against them.

Stern called Walsh’s proposed evidence procedures a “significant concession” that would ensure a speedy trial if Gesell agrees to adopt them. Gesell has not indicated when he will rule on the immunity issue.