February 22, 1986

EX-AGENT ACQUITTED OF KIDNAPPING IN PUERTO RICO

(SAN JUAN, P.R.) A former police undercover agent linked to a police slaying of two advocates of independence for Puerto Rico was found not guilty of a related kidnapping charge today.

The former agent, Alejandro Gonzalez Malave, was found not guilty by a vote of 9 to 3, the minimum needed to reach a verdict in
Puerto Rican courts. The jury of seven men and five women deliberated three hours before reaching the verdict.

On leaving the courtroom, the 29-year-old former agent asserted that he was being persecuted by the office of a special independent
prosecutor who had been named to investigate all the facets of the killing on the Cerro Maravilla mountaintop near Ponce, in
southern Puerto Rico.

The controversy surrounding the case was primarily responsible for the defeat of Gov. Carlos Romero Barcelo in the 1984 elections.

Driver Taken to Summit

The case originated in 1978, when Mr. Gonzalez Malave infiltrated a small band of reputed terrorists, the Armed Revolutionary
Movement. On July 25, 1978, Mr. Gonzalez Malave and two members of the group, Carlos Soto Arrivi, 18, and Arnaldo Dario
Rosado, 24, commandeered a taxi in Ponce.

Taking the driver, Julio Ortiz Molina, with them, they went to the summit of Cerro Maravilla, where the undercover agent said the
radicals were planning to sabotage a commercial television station's relay tower.

The attack, according to Mr. Gonzalez Malave, was to protest the imprisonment of Puerto Rican nationalists convicted of the 1950
attempt on the life of President Truman and the 1954 shooting in the United States Capitol in which five members of Congress were
injured.

Alerted by the undercover agent, a large contingent of police officers was staked out in the area. According to the police version of the
events that followed, Mr. Soto and Mr. Rosado ignored an order to surrender and fired at the police; the police returned the fire, killing
both men and wounding Mr. Gonzalez Malave.

Praise for Police Action

Gov. Romero Barcelo praised the police action and continued to support assertions by the police that they had acted in self-defense
even though the Mr. Ortiz Molina, the taxi driver, said Mr. Soto and Mr. Rosado were alive and disarmed when the the police removed him from the scene.

Two investigations by the Federal Justice Department's civil rights division led to findings that upheld the police account, although
several witnesses had told Federal investigators they heard two volleys of shots several minutes apart.

The controversy surrounding the case caused Governor Romero's party, the New Progressive Party, to lose control of the
Commonwealth Senate in 1980. The opposition Popular Democratic Party, which took control of the Senate, retained a former
Assistant District Attorney, Hector Rivera Cruz, to investigate.

In televised public hearings, several police officers who had turned state's witnesses testified that Mr. Soto and Mr. Rosado had been
shot by what amounted to a police firing squad. #10 Police Officers Jailed Ten police officers, including a former commander of the
police intelligence division, are serving sentences ranging from six years to 35 years in prison for lying to several Federal grand juries
involved in the civil rights investigations. Nine of the 10 officers are also facing murder charges in the Puerto Rican courts.

There is no statute of limitations on the crimes of kidnapping and murder in Puerto Rico. Mr. Gonzalez Malave was charged with
kidnapping last year by the office of the special independent prosecutor, William Fred Santiago. The office was created to prosecute
those not yet charged with complicity in the case and to determine who was involved in the cover-up.

The defense contended that Mr. Gonzalez Malave was acting under orders. The defense attorney, Hector Santiago Rivera, said the real
culprit was the government for permitting the plan to be carried out knowing that it involved the kidnapping of a taxi driver who was
to be held as a hostage.

The prosecutors, Joselyn Lopez and Alcides Oquendo, brought out testimony from a defense witness that the undercover agent had
threatened the hostage at gunpoint and driven the car. They also presented evidence that when the car approached the mountaintop,
Mr. Soto and Mr. Rosado suggested that Mr. Ortiz Molina be released but the undercover agent said they could not take the time.

Mr. Gonzalez Malave's refusal, according to a police officer sympathetic to the accused, was contrary to standing police procedures in
all cases involving hostages. The officer, Carmelo Cruz, testified that in such cases the primary consideration must be the safety of the
hostage.