Word: tafoya
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...jail cell two weeks ago, Gaddafi was immediately suspected of being behind his death. The reason: Swaiti may have been poisoned first. An inquiry is now under way. Suspicions also linger that Gaddafi was behind the attempted murder last year of a Libyan dissident in Colorado; Eugene Tafoya, a former Green Beret and a friend of onetime CIA Agent Wilson, was convicted of third-degree assault two weeks ago for the shooting...
...jury deliberated for three days before finally rendering a verdict that was almost as mystifying as the case itself. The jury found Tafoya guilty only of two misdemeanors: third-degree assault and conspiracy to commit this assault. Maximum sentence: 24 months and a $5,000 fine...
...jurors did not accept the prosecution's claim that Tafoya had been hired by Edwin Wilson, a former CIA agent now working for Gaddafi in Tripoli, to kill Zagallai because the Colorado State student had criticized the Libyan dictator. Still, they did seem to conclude that some unknown other conspirators had sent Tafoya to rough the student up. The fact that Zagallai ended up blinded in one eye, rather than dead, apparently impressed the jurors that Tafoya had not been bent on murder. They were also told by the defense that Tafoya fired his gun only after a struggle...
...evidence against Tafoya included a transcript of a telephone conversation in which he asked a Wilson associate whether he knew of "anyone who should quit breathing-permanently." The prosecution contended that this was an offer by Tafoya to become a hired killer...
...While Tafoya admitted working with Wilson in Libya, he said he did so as an undercover agent for the CIA, which understandably wanted to know what was going on in Gaddafi's inner circles. Tafoya's lawyer added another layer of complexity by suggesting that Wilson, too, might have been working under "deep cover" in Libya for the CIA. Tafoya's real mission in approaching Zagallai, the defense claimed, was to carry a message from the CIA asking the student to tone down his rhetoric on Middle East issues. But several jurors said after the verdict that...