R vs JOHN BANKS ( a face from the Angola civil war days )

Court told of 'CIA plot ' to kill Somoza

THE TIMES.

20^th NOV , 1980.

 By David Nicholson-Lord.

A contract to assassinate former President Somoza of Nicaragua was taken out by the Central Intelligence Agency on the orders of President Carter and his security advisers, it was alleged at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.

 John Banks, accused of demanding money with menaces from the Nicaraguan embassy for information on the alleged plot, said he was one of six British and American mercenaries who assembled at the Inn on the Park Hotel, London, to meet the organizer of the operation.

That turned out to be Mr. Frank Sturgis, who was convicted of burglary in the Watergate scandal. Mr. Banks said Mr. Sturgis was formerly head of the CIA's Central American assassination group, who since Watergate had worked for the CIA on a " contract to contract" basis.

With one exception, Mr. Banks said, the team were "principled mercenaries " who were astonished that the target was President Somoza. When they asked Mr. Sturgis who had authorized it, he said he had been called in by the head of the CIA, who said the order had come from President Carter and his security advisers.

Mr. Banks said: " I could not understand why Carter wanted Somoza dead ".

The reason was claimed to be that if President Somoza held out long enough against the Sandinista  guerrillas there was a prospect of Cuban involvement with the Sandinistas, thus of a left-wing rather than a moderate regime being set- up in Nicaragua. President Somoza died in September when his car was blown up in Paraguay.

The six men then decided that the implications of the contract were too serious. "I was chosen to blow the operation ". Mr.Banks, aged 35, of Camberley, Surrey, has denied three charges of demanding money with menaces. The prosecution has alleged he attempted to blackmail the Nicaraguan embassy by demanding $250,000 in return for information. When the operation had been aborted, Mr. Banks said the six would not have been safe outside Nicaragua.

The case continues today.