SCRIPT: The Traitor 4/05

April 27, 2005 — -- The story we're telling you tonight has all the elements of a very good, if complicated, movie: espionage, weapons sales to a terrorist state, high living, double and ultimately triple-crossing, several murder plots. And at the center of it all, an American who claims to have been a CIA agent and who parlayed that and his contacts around the world into a number of international deals, all of which made him a very rich man. Edwin P. Wilson had once been worth an estimated $23 million.

When government prosecutors finally did go after him in the early 1980s, they came at him from all sides. Four sets of charges, four trials. In Washington, he was charged with soliciting some Cuban hitmen to kill a Libyan dissident. He was acquitted in that trial. However, he was convicted in Virginia of illegally exporting an M-16 rifle and four pistols, including one that was used to kill a Libyan dissident in Bonn. Different dissident. And Wilson was sentenced to 15 years, ultimately reduced to 10. In New York, Wilson was charged with hiring a convicted murderer to kill two prosecutors, six of the witnesses against him, and his wife, who had filed for divorce. In that case, he was also convicted and sentenced to 25 years. But all of that is merely window dressing to what is at the heart of our story tonight. The charge that Wilson was a traitor and a merchant of death, who had sold more than 40,000 pounds of C-4 explosives to Libya. Wilson never denied it. He claimed, however, that he'd been working for the CIA when he did it. Knowing what I just told you about Ed Wilson, would you believe him? Neither did the jury. He was sentenced to 17 more years in prison. But as ABC's Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross now reports, Wilson was telling the truth. The government was lying.

BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS

Ed Wilson is a free man now. Telling his story 22 years after he was sent to prison. Labeled a traitor and a threat to America.

EDWARD WILSON, ALLEGED TRAITOR

That was me, the most-dangerous man in America, which is ridiculous.

BRIAN ROSS

It did not seem so ridiculous at the time. 1983. The Justice Department threw the book at Wilson. He was called a merchant of death, convicted of selling weapons and 20 tons of C-4 plastic explosives to Moammar Gadhafi's Libya. He was later convicted of trying to arrange a contract hit on the prosecutors. Wilson's downfall was a big story. Gadhafi and Libya were seen as the leading terrorist state then, much as Saddam Hussein and Iraq would be portrayed 20 years later.

EUGENE KAPLAN, FORMER ASSISTANT US ATTORNEY

Ed Wilson was a very cold-blooded, very ruthless, very greedy man.

BRIAN ROSS

At trial, Wilson admitted selling the explosives and keeping the money. But his defense was that he was still working with the CIA and that the agency knew and approved of everything he was doing with Libya, including the shipment of the explosives. The CIA would not disclose its records, but did provide this affidavit in the final days of the trial from a top CIA official with one minor exception. The CIA official said Wilson was not asked or requested to perform or provide any services directly or indirectly for CIA.

DAVID ADLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY

It was read into evidence during trial. The jury went back to deliberate.

BRIAN ROSS

The linchpin of the government's case, according to Wilson's lawyer now, David Adler.

DAVID ADLER

After a short time of deliberations, the jurors asked to hear this affidavit again. It was reread to them. And an hour later, they voted guilty on all counts for Mr. Wilson. So I think it was critical to the jury's decision.

BRIAN ROSS

Prosecutor Ted Greenberg says Wilson was making up his connection to the CIA.

TED GREENBERG, PROSECUTOR

Mr. Wilson did not work for the CIA or any other part of the intelligence community.

BRIAN ROSS

But that simply was not true, despite what the CIA's sworn affidavit said.

BRIAN ROSS

And now, some 20 years later, what do you know about that affidavit?

DAVID ADLER

Not true. It's bogus. They knew it wasn't true and decided to use it, regardless of the consequences.