WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Former CIA agent Edwin Wilson, who has spent 20 years behind bars for trafficking explosives to Libya, said Friday federal prosecutors had fabricated key evidence against him.

He told CNN government prosecutors had coached three of his fellow inmates on how to testify against him during his trial in the early 1980s.

Wilson, 75, spoke publicly after a U.S. federal court judge in Houston, Texas, last month a Texas-based conviction for trafficking in high explosives to Libya, mainly on the basis that false information was used in trial.

But he remains in a federal prison in Pennsylvania on similar convictions from other states. He said he is keen to get those overturned as well. Asked if he had ever trafficked explosives to Libya, Wilson replied: "I had nothing to do with it."

"It's great to be vindicated, even on that one case. I'm glad the facts are finally coming out," he said.

"After schooling them (the three inmates) in exactly what to say to the court, I was convicted ... that whole thing is garbage as a matter of fact," he said.

The onetime Central Intelligence Agency agent was convicted in 1983 of shipping some 20 tons of C4 plastic explosive to Libya, considered by the United States as a regime that supported terrorism.

During his trial, Wilson claimed he had arranged the arms shipments to Libya during the 1970s in order to curry favor with Tripoli at the CIA's request.

However, he was convicted after government prosecutors convinced the trial judge the ex-spy had virtually no contact with the CIA following his supposed retirement form the agency in 1971.

Houston federal judge Lynn Hughes ruled late last month that new documents showed there were in fact over 80 contacts, and overturned the conviction.

The Justice Department is currently reviewing the case, and Wilson said he would be seeking parole next year.