
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 20, 1990                   TAG: 9007200674
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

ONE NORTH CONVICTION REVERSED

An appeals court today reversed one of Oliver North's Iran-Contra convictions and ordered a lower court to determine whether his trial was tainted by congressional testimony he gave under a grant of immunity.

The former National Security Council aide was convicted on May 4, 1989, of three of 12 counts stemming from the Reagan administration's effort to sell arms to Iran and aid the Nicaraguan Contras.

The divided three-judge panel reversed North's conviction on the charge of altering and destroying sensitive NSC documents, finding that U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell gave erroneous jury instructions. North also was convicted of accepting an illegal gratuity and aiding and abetting the obstruction of Congress.

The court held that North was entitled to a full hearing on all three counts delving into whether his nationally televised testimony seeped into the case.

Independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, who supervised the investigation, said he was considering what his next step will be. "Everyone familiar with these proceedings has recognized the difficulties presented by the grant of immunity by Congress," he said in a statement. "We have diligently tried to work around these difficulties."

He said the Iran-Contra investigation was continuing. The grand jury hearing the matter was in session Friday.

Neither North nor his lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, was immediately available for comment.

North, a former Marine lieutenant colonel, described for Congress and a spellbound national television audience in July 1987 how the Reagan administration secretly sold arms to Iran and then used the profits to aid the Contras. He was guaranteed that his testimony would not be used in any criminal case against him.

If Gesell determines at the hearing that such tainted evidence was used to convict North on the other two charges, the court said he would be entitled to a new trial on those counts as well.

Gesell "must hold a . . . hearing that will inquire into the content as well as the sources of the grand jury and trial witnesses's testimony. That inquiry must proceed witness-by-witness; if necessary, it will proceed line-by-line and item-by-item," said the appeals court.

The government must show by a preponderance of the evidence that "no use whatsoever was made of any of the immunized testimony either by the witness" or by the Iran-Contra prosecutor's office in questioning the witness, said the court.

by CNB