CIA Reopens Probe of Abuse in Honduras

CIA Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz has reopened an investigation into the failure of agency clandestine officers to report allegations of torture by a CIA-supported Honduran military-intelligence unit in the mid-1980s, according to agency officials and congressional sources.

The inquiry, which was dropped earlier this year but resumed under pressure from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, raises the possibility of a new round of reprimands or disciplinary actions against active and retired officers for conduct in Central America.

Last year two senior CIA clandestine officers were fired and eight active or former operatives were reprimanded for involvement with a Guatemalan army colonel linked to abuses.

The Honduran case centers on a brutal, secretive Honduran military-intelligence unit called Battalion 3-16, which got training and support from the CIA.

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In a case that included a trial before an international court, human-rights groups have accused the unit of arresting, torturing and “disappearing” suspected leftist subversives in the late 1980s.

The inspector general’s inquiry focuses on a CIA case officer in Honduras who allegedly was aware of torture being carried out by Battalion 3-16 but did not report it to headquarters in Langley, Va., according to congressional sources.

The CIA officer said he told his boss, who then was the station chief in Honduras, one source said. But the former station chief cannot remember being told about torture, sources said.

A CIA spokesman confirmed that the inspector general’s Honduras inquiry is again active. It was closed earlier this year after a review of the files. “There are some aspects of the Honduras inquiry that need to be completed,” the spokesman said.