Security Issues Delay Ex-CIA Man’s Trial

The Justice Department, citing national security concerns, obtained a delay Monday in the Iran-Contra criminal case against the CIA’s former station chief in Costa Rica.

A U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals judge in Richmond, Va., issued an emergency stay to temporarily block the trial of Joseph F. Fernandez.

The ex-CIA operative’s trial was to have started Monday, but the CIA wanted to stop Fernandez’s lawyers from identifying as part of his defense three CIA programs in Costa Rica and the sites of three CIA stations and facilities in Latin America.

The Justice Department sought the emergency stay after U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton rejected prosecutors’ proposals to substitute numbers for the three CIA sites and to drop parts of one criminal charge against Fernandez to avoid mentioning the CIA programs.

Hilton said Fernandez must be allowed to mention the names of the CIA programs and that substituting numbers for names of the three CIA sites was not acceptable.

Ron Noble, a deputy assistant attorney general, told the judge that the department would seek a delay of the trial.

With a pool of prospective jurors waiting in a room adjacent to the court, the judge, obviously irritated, asked Noble why the Justice Department had not taken such action a week ago.

“This is a very difficult thing for the department to do,” Noble replied. He said that the proposals from the prosecutors “would allow this trial to go forward. We have no alternative.”

At the appeals court, the Justice Department is seeking to formally intervene in the case and wants the court to review Hilton’s denial of the prosecutors’ proposals.

Fernandez is charged with lying about his involvement with Oliver L. North’s Contra resupply network. He faces two counts of obstruction and two counts of making false statements.

The Justice Department went to the appeals court instead of filing a national security affidavit with the court. Such a document would categorically bar disclosure of certain classified information and could kill the case.