Judge Tells Jurors to Put Politics Aside in Deciding Iran-Contra Case

Jurors on Thursday began considering nine felony charges in the Iran-Contra trial of former CIA spymaster Clair E. George after a judge instructed them to put aside any political considerations in the case.

“It is not your function, or the court’s, to decide whether the (Ronald) Reagan Administration’s commitment to assist the Contras in Nicaragua was the correct policy for the United States, or whether opponents of that commitment were correct,” U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth told the jury of eight women and four men who received the case after a monthlong trial.

He said they also were to ignore their personal views on whether U.S. arms should have been sold secretly to Iran in an effort to free American hostages in Lebanon.

Lamberth later in the day excused jurors for the night when they had not reached a verdict after five hours of deliberations. They were to return to the courthouse this morning from a nearby hotel, where they are being sequestered.

George, who was the CIA’s third-ranking executive from 1984 to 1987, is being tried for perjury, obstruction of official inquiries and making false statements to congressional and grand jury panels investigating the Iran-Contra scandal over a five-year period.

Chief prosecutor Craig A. Gillen, representing independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, based his case largely on dozens of CIA cables, memos and briefing papers George had received, as well as on the testimony of 25 witnesses, particularly Alan D. Fiers, who worked for George as chief of the agency’s Central American Task Force.

In a plea agreement last year, Fiers pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress and was sentenced to a year of probation and 100 hours of community service.

George, if convicted on all counts, would face a maximum penalty of 45 years in prison and fines of $2.2 million.