University Daily Kansan / Monday, March 28, 1988
7
NationWorld
Israeli nuclear technician gets 18 years for treason
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM — Mordchechian Vanu, the former nuclear technician who said he acted as a spy for the common man when he gave Israeli atomic secrets to a newspaper, was sentenced yesterday to 18 years in prison for treason and espionage.
The 34-year-old Israeli, who told a British newspaper that his country possessed nuclear weapons, was convicted Thursday.
The sentencing climaxed a sevenmonth closed-door trial that focused worldwide attention on Israel's nuclear capability.
The charges can carry a death penalty. But the prosecution requested a life term, which Israeli law limits to 20 years. The court reduced the term by two years, citing Vanunu's cooperation with investigators, apparent signs of regret and the difficult conditions of his 18-month solitary confinement.
Defense attorney Avigidor Feldman has said he would appeal his client's case to Israel's Supreme Court.
The sentencing climaxed an affair shrouded in secrecy that began when Vanunu, a 10-year employee of Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, gave photographs and details of the facility to the Sunday Times of London.
Under Israeli law, Vanunu could be released on good behavior after 12 years. But legal commentators said that his early release was unlikely given the severity of the crimes.
Based on that information, the paper reported that Israel had stockpiled the world's sixth largest nuclear arsenal.
$70 million spent on teen abstinence
The Associated Press
NEW VORK - The Reagan administration since 1981 has spent more than $70 million, a small sum in an era of trillion-dollar budgets, trying to persuade America's teen-agers to abstain from premarital sex.
separation of church and state.
But there is a problem, said American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Janet Benshoof. She said that the money from the Adolescent Family Life Act was going to religious organizations to promote their beliefs, a clear violation of the constitutional
The Department of Health and Human Services disagrees, and the case goes before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The arguments indirectly pit the ACLU against President Reagan, an outspoken proponent of what he once called "my Adolescent Family Life Program."
A decision in the case is expected some time before the court's July 3 summer break. It should provide a first look at newly appointed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's views on family life questions.
Sandinistas order prisoners released
The Associated Press
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The leftist Sandinista government announced yesterday that it was releasing about 100 political prisoners in preparation for further peace talks with U.S. supported contras.
An Interior Ministry announcement said that the prisoners were to be released yesterday afternoon, but officials refused to give immediate details for security reasons.
In another development, President Daniel Ortega suggested that the United Nations send a multinational peacekeeping force to the Nicaraguan-Honduran border to stabilize the area. Ortega said she had been on the moral side to a U.N. technical commission visiting the border area.
Ortega asks for U.N. forces to help stabilize border area
Most of the prisoners to be released
yesterday were workers arrested for joining illegal strikes or people who demonstrated against the Sandinista government.
The release was ordered under an amnesty law the National Assembly approved by a margin of 82-2 Saturday night. The law could result in the release of about 3,300 political prisoners jailed since the Sandinistas seized power in a 1979 revolution that overthrew President Anastasio Somoza.
According to the legislation, another undisclosed number of contra rebels taken prisoner during the
six-year civil war will be released at an unspecified later date. The government also plans a general review of the cases of about 1,800 members of Somoza's now-disbanded National Guard, Ortega said.
In what was a surprise move, leaders of the contra umbrella organization, the Nicaraguan Resistance, met with the Sandinistas last week and agreed Thursday on a 60-day cease-fire beginning April 1. Further negotiations will follow to reach a more permanent truce.
An informal cease-fire both sides had agreed to while the negotiations
were in progress continued to hold yesterday.
Ortega said the two sides will meet again today in the little southern village of Sapoa, near the Costa Rican border, to continue talks.
The negotiations will now center on so-called "truce areas" where the contras can gather and later turn in their weapons.
In Honduras, about 3,200 American troops, sent in two weeks ago by President Reagan when Sandinista troops allegedly entered Honduras in pursuit of contra rebels, prepared to return home today.
The Reagan administration said they were sent both to bolster the Honduran government and as a warning to the Sandinistas against further incursions.
Wright adviser tied to contra arms network
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — An "eyes-and-ears" adviser to House Speaker Jim Wright tried to sell weapons to the contras through Lt. Col. Oliver North's private network three months before the Iran-contra disclosures ended the North operation.
Richard M. Pena, a former House Foreign Affairs Committee staff member, contacted North's associate Richard Miller in 1986 and offered material from two South American companies. One would sell grenades, bombs and mines, and the other had boots at $33 a pair, according to a
letter that proposed the sale.
The letter went to World Affairs Counselors, a Cayman Islands front company formed by Miller and his partner Frank Gomez to handle their Contra transactions for North. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.
Pena's actions were lawful.
Pena has been one of Wright's advisers on Central America during the past few years, and as recently as January was Wright's paid emissary to the region while a movement toward peace talks was under way, said Wright aide Marshall Lynam. He said Pena was on the speaker's payroll for a few days on each of three occasions: in August and November last year, and in January.
Such activity would appear at odds with the objectives of Wright, who has opposed military aid to the contras and has taken an active role in efforts to get a negotiated peace agreement between Nicaragua's warring factions.
The Associated Press
Through Lynam, Wright denied any knowledge of "anything he (Pena) might have had to do with arms sales or anything like that."
WASHINGTON — Less than a month before the filing deadline, fewer than half the U.S. citizens have finished their tax returns. But refunds are bigger, the Internal Revenue Service is doing a better job answering questions, and taxpayers are making fewer mistakes than had been expected.
Half of tax returns remain to be filed
Attorneys said that it appeared
Pena was known to be sympathetic to the contrasts, in contrast to other Wright confidants.
Miller pleaded guilty in the Iran-contra case, along with conservative fund-raiser Carl "Spitz" Channell, to conspire with North to defraud the government by raising money to purchase weapons for the contras.
The letter went to World Affairs Counselors, a Cayman Islands front company formed by Miller and his partner Frank Gomez to handle their Contra transactions for North. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.
"I'm happy to report that so far, the filing season is going much as we
had predicted and hoped," IRS Commissioner Lawrence B. Gibbs told audiences.
More than seven of every 10 returns are qualifying for refunds: 25 million refunds totaling $20 billion, an average of $809 apiece. The number of refunds is down slightly and the average is up a bit from 1987.
Through March 18, 47.6 million returns had been logged at the 10 IRS service centers. Only 35 million had been processed.
News Roundup
JACKSON WINS MICHIGAN: Jesse Jackson parlayed his built-in core of support — the potent black voice of the Michigan Democratic Party — into a landslide victory in the state's Democratic caucuses. But the 55 percent Jackson commanded far outstripped the state's black population. According to 1800 census, Michigan is 13 percent black. Jackson buried Dukakis in vote totals with 107,699 votes to Dakiks' 55,337 or 28 percent, while Gephardt came in third with 24,995 or 13 percent. Sen. Paul Simon had 4,069 or 2 percent; Gore had 3,818 or 2 percent.
CHURCH TO DISCIPLINE SWAGGART: The Assemblies of God hopes to put the Jimmy
SUSPECTED KGB SPIES CAUGHT: Police raids that began last week have netted at least six people suspected of spying in West Germany for the Soviet KGB, a leading newspaper said yesterday. The Bonn-based newspaper, Die
Swaggart scandal to rest after the church's highest governing body meets today in Springfield, Mo., to discipline the television minister for an alleged relationship with a prostitute. Swaggart, the denomination's most prominent minister, confessed Feb. 21 from his Baton Rouge, La., pulpit to unspecified sins. Swaggart did not elaborate publicly, but reports have linked him to voyeurism involving a prostitute.
Kansan Classified (913) 864-4358
Welt, quoting unidentified security sources, said the suspects included Russian emigres placed in West Germany by the Soviet intelligence and secret police agency.
VIOLENCE INTERRUPTS WORSHIP: A man wielding an ax and knife burst into a worship service yesterday in Reading, England, and seriously wounded three congregation members, police said. The attacker slit a woman's throat, sliced another woman's hand and bashed a man over the head with the ax, according to LBC, a London radio station. He then sped away in a car and set fire to his home before he was arrested, police said.
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COMMENCEMENT The University of Kansas
Degree Candidates and Faculty:
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All participants, including faculty doctorate, law, Master's, and Bachelor's candidates, wear traditional regalia during the commencement ceremonies.
Candidates and faculty members may order caps, gowns, and/or hoods by visiting the concessions stand at gates 22 and 23 at the north end of Memorial Stadium between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.on any weekday until Friday, April 29, or by mailing the order form from the graduation mailing. To ensure proper fit, participants are encouraged to order caps, gowns, and/or hoods at Memorial Stadium.
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