02/04 MIAMI (UPI) -- The flight crew of a Miami cargo jet is suing
the U.S. government over a botched drug sting that put them in a
Honduran jail, where the crewmen said they were beaten and tortured
for 12 days.
   DEA agents planted 105.6 pounds of cocaine on the DC-8 airliner
two years ago in hopes of catching drug smugglers in Belize, but
neglected to tell the pilot and his colleagues.
   When the jet landed in San Pedro Sula in Honduras on a flight
back to Miami, drug-sniffing dogs discovered the cocaine.
   Honduran police, unaware of the sting, promptly jailed pilot
Claude Woodhull, co-pilot Jose Calmet and flight engineer Jean Denis
Belieu.
   The Miami men charge that for 12 days in April 1991, jailers beat
them with rubber hoses, tortured them with electric shocks and
forced them to stand for hours.
  The pilots want the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Customs Service
and the Justice Department to pay unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
   According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Miami, the
agencies as well as the ariline, Belize Air International, all knew
about the sting.
   Additional lawsuits could be pending because the plane also
carried five unsuspecting passengers, who were thrown in jail with
the crew.
   According to the lawsuit, the DEA was trying to smoke out drug
smugglers that they believed were trying to use the airline to ferry
cocaine back to Miami.
   On a one-day trip, the DC-8 flew to Belize, where agents placed
the drugs aboard, then stopped in Honduras on the flight back. The
agents had hoped to grab the smugglers when they picked up the
cocaine at Miami International Airport, the suit said.
   When the sting went askew, the U.S. government acknowledged the
foul- up.

   The U.S. Embassy in Honduras apologized to an angry President Rafael
Callejas, who wondered why a sting operation occurred in his country without
permission.

   Callejas called it "a poorly directed and poorly executed action" at the
time, and said, "The situation set up by the DEA has caused us consternation and
surprise."

   The U.S. embassy said the agents responsible for the sting failed to notify
their counterparts in Honduras in time to coordinate the operation, and said the
case was under review.

   Despite the apology, Honduran police kept the crew in jail for nearly two
weeks, the lawsuit alleges.

   Night after night, the prisoners slept in a San Pedro Sula jail,  "shoulder
to shoulder and cot to cot" with 400 other inmates, and were forced to drink
rancid water from a pipe on the floor, said attorney Arthur Tifford, who
represents Belieu and Calmet.

   Bill Ruzzamenti, a DEA spokesman in Washington, said Wednesday that he could
not comment on the lawsuit.