Walsh Asks One Trial for North and 3 Iran Deal Co-Defendants

WASHINGTON — Fired National Security Council aide Oliver L. North and three Iran-Contra co-defendants should face trial together because they were all part of the same illegal scheme to aid the Nicaraguan Contras, independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh said Tuesday.

Walsh, in a brief, urged U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell to deny defense motions to have separate trials for North, former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter and businessmen Richard V. Secord and Albert A. Hakim.

The prosecutor said the defense strategy would require five separate trials on various counts for North and one each for the other defendants. This would result “in a massive waste of time and effort,” Walsh said.

Arguments on Separation

North’s lawyers contended that separate trials were needed for their client on counts that charged him but not other defendants. Walsh said the law did not require such a separation.

Walsh said the defendants participated in a “common scheme” to “create, protect, and preserve an illegal financial and logistical network . . . to support the Contras and other activities designed by North and Poindexter.”

Gesell said last week that it might be a “practical impossibility” to have a single trial because the co-defendants might be unable to exercise their rights to fully cross-examine each other.

Limited Immunity Involved

In this case, such cross-examination might involve questions that refer to testimony given to Congress under a grant of limited immunity from prosecution. The immunized testimony--given by all of the defendants except Secord--cannot be used by the prosecution, and there is a chance that Gesell may bar the defense from using it also.

That would create a conflict between the Fifth Amendment privilege of a testifying defendant not to have his immunized testimony used against him and the right of a defendant under the Sixth Amendment to confront his co-defendants in a trial.