Narcotics agent admits 'mess-ups' in Texan case

An undercover narcotics agent whose questionable testimony led to the arrests of half the black men in a small town in Texas four years ago was being cross-examined for a second day yesterday, in a court hearing that defence lawyers hope will lead to the exoneration of 22 people still in prison on drug charges.

The 1999 drug sting in the town of Tulia has become a byword for everything that is wrong with the United States' war on drugs in rural areas.

It is a rallying point for race advocacy groups, which argue that the only reason the courts believed the uncorroborated, largely undocumented testimony of Tom Coleman was because the establishment in Tulia is white and the defendants all lived in a black neighborhood, openly referred to as "Niggertown".

In the new hearing, Mr Coleman has been questioned by a top Washington lawyer, Mitchell Zamoff, and admitted countless holes and inconsistencies in his working methods. "You're not sure everybody in jail belongs there, are you?" Mr Zamoff asked on Thursday. "I'm pretty sure," Mr Coleman said, shifting in his seat.

Later, Mr Coleman admitted there were "some mess-ups" in four of the 22 cases, although he refused to admit any mistakes in the case of Tonya White, who was let out of prison last year after she managed to prove through bank records that she was in Oklahoma, where she lived, at the time that Mr Coleman said he was buying powder cocaine from her in Tulia.

Ms White has said that she never met Coleman until her first pretrial and that she does not know how or why he obtained her name.

Mr Coleman, a former prison employee with a history of petty crime, claims to have organised about 100 drug transactions in his sting operation. He kept few formal records, sometimes identified people by going to the police and asking for likely names, and on at least one occasion scrawled the pertinent information with a biro on his leg.

Mr Zamoff asked him: "The only evidence that any of the buys you said were made in Swisher County happened is your word, correct?" He replied: "Yes."

Mr Coleman's testimony provoked titters from the largely black crowd in the courtroom, as he repeatedly came out with phrases such as: "I'm not even sure I'm telling you accurate" and "Don't hold this to a T". He also admitted that the times on his worksheets did not correspond to reality.

One person attending the hearings was Mattie White, who had four children imprisoned on Mr Coleman's word. One of them, Tonya, is now free, while the others are serving sentences of 14, 25 and 60 years. Asked for her reaction to the hearings by a New York Times reporter, she said: "The truth is finally coming out."