Iran-Contra Case Against Key CIA Official Dismissed : Secrets: Judge says attorney general’s ban on vital evidence prevented a defense. Prosecutor will appeal.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge today dismissed all Iran-Contra charges against the CIA’s former top official in Costa Rica, ruling he could not defend himself because the attorney general had banned key evidence from the trial.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ruled that government secrets, prohibited from disclosure by Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, were essential to the defense of Joseph Fernandez.

Standing on the steps of the federal courthouse, Fernandez said, “After three long years, my ordeal is over. I profess my innocence against the charges against me because I am innocent.”

Independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh ordered an immediate appeal of Hilton’s ruling.

A trial of Fernandez would reveal that the CIA had extensive knowledge of the secret, illegal Nicaraguan Contra resupply operation headed by fired White House aide Oliver L. North, reports have said.

On Wednesday, Thornburgh took the unprecedented step of filing an affidavit with the judge blocking disclosure of government secrets at the Fernandez trial.

Walsh, sharply attacking Thornburgh today, said: “If he had filed his affidavit last July, a proper appeal would have already been decided and the trial would have been concluded.”

Walsh has accused Thornburgh of protecting “fictional secrets”--that is, information that has largely become public knowledge during a series of previous Iran-Contra trials and nationally televised congressional hearings.

Thornburgh’s move was the first time an attorney general has scuttled a trial by blocking use of key information since the law about classified information at criminal trials was adopted in 1980.