SOLDIER OF FORTUNE DIES MYSTERIOUSLY AFTER TALKING TO CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATORS

by Vince Bielski and Dennis Bernstein

A county coroner in Los Angeles has yet to announce the cause of death of Steven Carr, a 27-year-old U.S. mercenary who has provided Congress with much of what it knows about weapons shipments to the contras. Had Carr lived, he was also expected to testified in federal court against 29 contra supporters allegedly involved in cocaine trafficking, an assassination attempt on former contra leader Eden Pastora and a scheme to kill U.S Ambassador to Costa Rica Lewis Tambs.

While Detective Mel Arnold of the Los Angeles Police Department said the department is investigating the possibility that Carr was murdered, at this point he said there doesn't appear to be any evidence of "foul play." But in the days before his death, Carr told several people that he feared he would be assassinated. He was "very paranoid and frightened" because of his role as a witness, Carr's sister Ann of Naples, Fla., said.

Here is what the police are saying about Carr's death. He died at 4 am on December 13 in a parking lot near his friend's apartment in Van Nuys, Calif., where he was staying. In the predawn hours on this Saturday morning, while his friend, Jacqueline Scott, was asleep, Carr left the apartment for an unknown reason. After spending an undetermined amount of time outside, Carr began making noise which awoke Scott. Arnold said he could not describe the type of noise Carr was making. Scott found Carr in the parking lot, who was "distressed and having coordination problems." Soon after he died from a "probable cocaine overdose." Asked if the police found any physical evidence of cocaine use in the area of the apartment or parking lot, Arnold said "no comment."

Dan Sheehan, an attorney with the Christic Institute in Washington which filed the law suit against the 29 contra supporter, said Carr used cocaine, but called him "an educated user." Martha Honey, a reporter for the BBC, became friends with Carr while he was a mercenary in Costa Rica. She said Carr was not the type of person who would kill himself because he was under pressure. "Stevie was a survivor. He had this ability to get himself in trouble but he always seemed to bounce back. He had a great sense of humor."

The source of his fears were not just the contra supporters whose alleged crimes he revealed, but also the U.S. government. Carr said that while he was in Costa Rica, U.S. embassy officials threatened to jail him if he squealed on their contra operation in Costa Rica.

In April 1985 Carr was arrested by Costa Rican authorities for violating the country's neutrality and sent to prison. Carr was one of several mercenaries based in northern Costa Rica on land owned and managed by a U.S. citizen and reported CIA operative named John Hull. Evidence from several sources suggests that the contras operate what amounts to a military base on property controlled by Hull as well as an airbase for the movement of cocaine from Columbia into the United States.

While in jail, Carr spilled the beans about the contra operation. To reporters, he claimed that Hull had told him that Hull was the CIA liaison to the contras and was receiving $10,000 a month from the National Security Council to help finance the operation. Carr told Honey why he was revealing such secrets: "Carr said that the mercenaries had been led to believe that their mercenary activity was sanctioned by top U.S. military and Costa Rican officials. He was extremely bitter at having been arrested."

Honey compiled information from Carr and other sources into a book focusing on the role of Hull and other contra supporters in the May 1984 assassination attempt against Pastora in Nicaragua in which a bomb explosion killed eight people and injured Pastora. Hull sued Honey, and her colleague Tony Avirgan, for libel in May 1986. Carr received a subpoena to appear at the trial, where he was to be a key witness for the reporters' defense.

On May 16, Carr was released from jail. He later described the events which took place in his life over the course of the next week to Honey and an U.S. congressional aide involved in an investigation of the arms supply network to the contras.

Carr said that Hull bailed him out of jail as a way of persuading him to testify on Hull's behalf. Hull requested that Carr testify that the reporters forced him to make the charges against Hull, Carr said.

That same day, Carr said he went to the U.S. embassy to determine why he was arrested for participating in a war that the U.S. supports. He said he met with two officials, Kirk Kotula, the counsel general and John Jones, the acting chief of the consulute.

According to Honey's notes of her conversation with Carr about his meeting with the officials, Carr said: "The officials told me they knew all about Hull's contra operation and they had me call him. He picked up the phone instantly, as if he had been waiting for my call.

"They said if I go to court and testify in your behalf I'll go to jail whether I tell the truth or not. I had no choice in the matter. The embassy told me to get the hell out of Dodge or I'd go back to La Reforma prison. They told me that the bus to Panama leaves at 7:30 pm and to be on it," he said.

Carr spent the next three days staying at Honey's house. On night of May 19, Carr left the house to visit a friend, and the following day, the U.S. embassy told the court that Carr was in their custody and that he would appear at the trial, Honey said. However, Carr said on May 20, following U.S. embassy orders, he took a bus to Panama, and with the help to the U.S. embassy there, flew to Miami a few days later. Upon his return, Carr was put in jail in Naples, Fla., for a prior offense.

Kotula said he had talked with Carr, but denied the he had threatened him or forced him to leave Costa Rica. "That's not true, at least by me. I did not threaten him with any such thing. I couldn't do that, what would be the possible motive. I can't put people in jail and I can't get people out of jail.

"I tried to convince Steve Carr when I first met him not to go and join up with some bunch of guys. He was nothing but a overgrown child who had read too many John Wayne comic books."

Jonathan Winer, an aide to Sen. John Kerry D-Mass., said the Senator's office is investigating the matter. "There are obviously some very serious questions regarding the U.S. embassy's role in Steven Carr leaving Costa Rica," he said.

After Carr's return to the U.S., congressional investigators said they had planned on bringing him before Congress. His testimony, based on his participation on a March 6, 1985 arms shipment from Fort Lauderdale to Ilogango Air Base in El Salvador, would have linked Felix Rodriguez--the ex-CIA agent who reportedly met with Donald Gregg, aide to Vice President George Bush--to that weapons shipment, Sheehan said.

"He is the guy that can prove that the March 6 shipment of weapons that flew out of the Fort Lauderdale Airport went to Ilopango airport," said Sheehan. "He witnessed and can identify Felix Rodriguez as the guy who off loaded the weapons to smaller planes which were then flown to Hull's ranch in Costa Rica."

In early 1986, Carr and two other eye-witnesses told federal authorities that several major players in the arms supply network were involved in the shipment, including Tom Posey, head of the mercenary group Civilian Materiel Assistance, Robert Owen, reportedly a liaison to fired Lt. Col. Oliver North, and Hull, Sheehan said.

With no criminal indictment by October, Sheehan alleged before a congressional committee that the Justice Department had engaged in a "willfull conspiracy...to obstruct justice....A number of telephone calls were then placed to Mr. Kellner (the U.S. Attorney in Miami) personally by Edwin Meese...instructing Mr. Kellner 'to proceed very, very, very slowly' in any investigation of this case." Kellner has said he has talked with Meese about the case, but denied Sheehan's allegation.

A grand jury has recently formed in Miami to reportedly hear evidence about the March 6 weapons shipment. But the one person who could have provided the grand jury with an eye-witness account that the weapons were transported from U.S. soil to El Salvador--evidence which is essential in making a case that the U.S. Neutrality Act and the Arms Export Control Act were violated--is now dead.

"A great deal of the information Carr provided did check out. It will now be harder for anyone to bring a prosecution with Steven's testimony now unavailable, and I think that is very unfortunate," Winer said. ----------------------------------------------------------------- e, and I think that is very unfortunate,"