Spain to Transfer Drug Convict

WASHINGTON — Spanish officials today decided to release an American photographer who once worked as an intern for Vice President George Bush from a Spanish prison where he is serving a six-year term for cocaine smuggling and send him to the United States to serve the remainder of his term.

Conan Owen, 24, of Annandale, Va., will be the sixth American to be transferred from Spanish prisons under a 1983 European agreement. Owen, an honors graduate from Syracuse University, was sentenced to six years and one day in prison for drug smuggling last April, despite information from U.S. officials indicating that he was framed. Former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III had interceded in Owen’s behalf.