Poindexter Lawyer Says U.S. Trial Evidence Was Tainted

WASHINGTON — John M. Poindexter’s lawyer accused the government Thursday of reneging on a pledge to the former national security adviser not to use his congressional testimony at his trial.

“The government made a solemn promise to Adm. Poindexter that his immunized testimony before Congress would not be used against him, (then it) used tainted witnesses and tainted evidence,” Keith A. Jones told a three-judge appeals court panel.

Jones asked the appeals court to overturn Poindexter’s five Iran-Contra convictions, contending that the government’s case “was gossamer thin, too thin to support conviction.”

The retired Navy vice admiral was sentenced to six months in prison for lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair, which involved the sale of arms to Iran and use of the profits to aid anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua.

Poindexter, who was in court Thursday, has been free pending the appeal.

Jones said the case turned on “supposition, innuendo and hyperbole.” He contended that U.S. District Judge Harold Greene, who presided over the case, did not safeguard against the use of congressional testimony that Poindexter gave under a grant of immunity.

But Andrew L. Frey, arguing the case for the government, said Greene’s procedures satisfied the requirements for ensuring that immunized testimony not be presented at trial.

“His factual findings that no use of immunized testimony had occurred were fully supported by the evidence before him and certainly cannot be considered clearly erroneous,” Frey said in a court brief.

The judges questioned lawyers about the testimony of Oliver L. North, a National Security Council aide who worked under Poindexter.

A federal appeals panel last year set aside North’s Iran-Contra convictions--from a trial that preceded Poindexter’s--on grounds that his immunized testimony may have unfairly influenced his trial. The government has asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling.