Edwin P. Wilson, former CIA spy, dies at 84

Edwin P. Wilson, the former spy who posed as a rich American businessman for the CIA and spent 22 years in prison for arms dealing, has died at the age of 84, reports AP. 

Wilson died September 10 in Seattle from complications from a heart valve replacement surgery, Craig Emmick, a director at Columbia Funeral Home in Seattle, told AP. 

As a spy, Wilson lived large and loose. He owned homes around the world including a 2,338-acre estate in Northern Virginia. He set up shell companies abroad for the CIA and was convicted in 1983 for shipping 20 tons of C-4 plastic explosives to Libya.

At his trial, he told the court that he shipped the weapons with the CIA's approval to ingratiate himself with the Libyan government. 

"I was buddying up to them," he told the Washington Post in a 2004 interview. 

He was convicted and spent 22 years in prison until a federal judge threw out that conviction in 2003, saying the government had covered up information about Wilson's service to the CIA.

"I can't think of one thing I did that I have any guilt about," Wilson told seattlepi.com in a 2006 interview, reported by AP. "I didn't hurt anybody. I didn't get anyone killed."

According to the New York Times, prosecutors focused their case on an affidavit by the CIA’s third-ranking official claiming that Wilson was not working for the CIA at the time. 

After spending two decades in prison, Wilson was finally able to convince a federal judge that the official had lied and that he had been working for the CIA at the time. 

“Because the government knowingly used false evidence against him and suppressed favorable evidence, his conviction will be vacated,” Judge Hughes wrote according to the New York Times.

“America will not defeat Libyan terrorism by double-crossing a part-time informal government agent," he added. 

Wilson moved north of Seattle after his 2004 release from prison to live with his brother.