BY RICK VECCHIO
Associated Press

LIMA - Fifteen years ago, Florida journalist Todd Smith was slain after he ventured into Peru's jungle to investigate links between Shining Path guerrillas and the cocaine trade.

At the time, Peru's Interior Ministry said the 28-year-old Tampa Tribune reporter had been captured by the Maoist rebels and possibly sold to drug traffickers for $30,000, the bounty then offered for anyone suspected of being a U.S. drug enforcement agent.

A secret counterterrorism court in April 1993 sentenced Shining Path guerrilla José Manrique to 30 years in prison for taking part in the murder.

A U.S. Embassy official confirmed that Manrique, the only person ever tried and convicted for the crime, received an early release, the details of which were sketchy.

Now, the transcript of that secret trial has emerged, including a police intelligence report that identifies Fernando Zevallos -- allegedly Peru's most notorious cocaine trafficker -- as one of the masterminds behind Smith's killing, The Associated Press has learned.

The complete court file was obtained by the Lima-based Institute for Press and Society, an internationally funded press freedom organization.

Terry Parham, director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Lima office, would not comment on Zevallos' alleged link to Smith's murder, but told the AP: ``Fernando Zevallos is the Al Capone of Peru, and I'll stand by that statement.''

According to one of several detailed intelligence reports in the transcript, the guerrillas who tortured and strangled Smith were working for Zevallos and two brothers involved in the drug trade, Arnulfo and Moises Zamora.

The three allegedly wanted Smith killed because they believed he had discovered information about upcoming shipments of nearly three tons of semi-processed cocaine from the Peruvian jungle town of Uchiza to Colombia.

Peru's leading daily, El Comercio, on Sunday cited an excerpt of one of the intelligence reports saying that Zevallos called a meeting of cocaine traffickers and guerrillas and ``made the plan and coordinated all those designated to liquidate the gringo.''

But Peruvian investigators told the AP that other confidential informants identified Arnulfo Zamora as the one who gave the actual order.

Zevallos could not be reached for comment, but his lawyer in Miami, David B. Rothman, said, ``For well over a decade, anonymous, misleading, coerced and paid-for allegations of criminal conduct have been made against Fernando Zevallos. Judges, prosecutors, Peruvian and U.S. financial experts, a renowned polygraph examiner and most recently an internationally recognized investigative agency have proven the allegations false.''

Smith, who aspired to be a foreign correspondent, was in Peru for a working vacation.

His body was found beaten and strangled on Nov. 21, 1989, near Uchiza, 245 miles northeast of Lima. A note found on his body indicated that the killers believed he was a U.S. drug enforcement agent.

The secret trial transcript showed that the key prosecution witness against Manrique was a paid U.S. informant, Reynaldo Beltrán.

Beltrán identified Manrique as one of the guerrillas who took him prisoner with Smith after they had been seen speaking together in Uchiza's main square. He said he escaped after the guerrillas untied his hands, intending to use the rope to strangle Smith.

Beltrán did not mention cocaine traffickers in his testimony.

According to DEA documents obtained by the AP, Zevallos owned a jungle air charter company, Tausa, and spent the latter part of the 1980s using Uchiza as his base of operations to fly frequent shipments of semi-processed cocaine to Colombia.

on his fleet of Cessna and Mitsubishi aircraft.

Zevallos and Arnulfo Zamora went on trial with 10 co-defendants in Lima earlier this year for their alleged roles in Peru's largest drug bust of the past decade -- the 1995 seizure of 3.3 tons of cocaine destined for Guadalajara, Mexico. Zevallos, who could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted, is free on his own recognizance.

Arnulfo Zamora died in prison of stomach cancer last week, a Peruvian law enforcement official said. Moises Zamora was murdered in 1999, a second law enforcement source said.

Smith went unaccompanied to Uchiza against the advice of U.S. Embassy officials. He interviewed members of a local agricultural cooperative, who took him to see the area's vast hills covered with coca leaf -- the raw material for cocaine.

The day before he planned to leave the region, he was advised that it was unsafe to check into a hotel, so he spent the night in a local municipal office.

The next day he made his way to the airstrip outside Uchiza and was last seen speaking to Carlos Arevela, a Tausa ticket agent, the intelligence report said. Four heavily armed men emerged from the jungle. One of them grabbed Smith forced him into a pickup truck.

For the next several days, Smith was moved by the guerrillas from a hotel owned by one of the Zamora brothers to two nearby locations in the jungle, the intelligence report said.