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Updated: 12:16 p.m. PT June 8, 2007
NEW YORK - A wealthy Syrian arms dealer previously accused of
arming militants from Iraq to Somalia has been arrested in Spain on
charges he plotted to supply millions of dollars worth of weapons
to Colombian rebels, U.S. officials said Friday.
The arrest followed an international sting operation in which
undercover agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration
convinced Monzer al-Kassar that they wanted to buy surface-to-air
missile systems, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, thousands of
machine guns and millions of rounds of ammunition for the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a rebel army classified in
the United States as a terrorist group.
Al-Kassar, 61, and his cohorts believed "the arms deal was
absolutely real," U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said at a news
conference in New York. "They demonstrated their willingness to
support a terrorist organization and their capacity to do
so."
The defendant, a longtime resident of Spain, was arrested Thursday
evening at Madrid's Barajas airport after he arrived on a flight
from the southern resort city of Malaga, officials said. On Friday,
investigators searched his palatial home in Marbella, near
Malaga.
"Someone who considered himself untouchable is now sitting in a
jail in Spain," said Karen Tandy, the DEA administrator.
Arrests in Romania
Two other men indicted in Manhattan's U.S. District Court, Tareq
Mousa al Ghazi and Luis Filipe Moreno Godoy, were arrested in
Romania, officials said.
During the sting, more than $400,000 was wired from New York to
Spain as down payment, but no weapons ever changed hands, officials
said.
Al-Kassar went before a Spanish judge in Madrid on Friday. There
were no immediate details on extradition proceedings, though Spain
and the United States do have an extradition treaty that applies in
such cases.
The indictment from a New York federal grand jury charges al-Kassar
with conspiracy to provide aid and equipment to a terrorist
organization, conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and officials,
conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles and money
laundering. The men arrested in Romania face the same charges; no
other details about them, including their nationalities, were
immediately available.
The indictment said al-Kassar has provided weapons and military
equipment to violent factions in Nicaragua, Brazil, Cyprus, Bosnia,
Croatia, Somalia, Iran and Iraq.
"Some of these factions have included known terrorist
organizations, such as the Palestinian Liberation Front," the
indictment said, "the goals of which included attacks on United
States interests and United States nationals."
Al-Kassar's weapons-trafficking business included "an international
network of criminal associates, front companies and bank accounts,"
the indictment said.
In addition to "bombings, massacres, kidnappings and other acts of
violence within Colombia," the revolutionary group, known as FARC,
is "the world's largest supplier of cocaine," the indictment
said.
On Iraq's most-wanted list
Al-Kassar is also reportedly on the Iraqi government's most-wanted
list for allegedly arming insurgents, and has been accused of
aiding militants in many of the world's bloodiest conflicts.
In an interview in October of last year with the British newspaper
The Guardian, al-Kassar acknowledged he was friends with an alleged
leader in the Iraq insurgency who was a relative of Saddam Hussein,
but insisted he knew nothing of the man's role in fighting against
the U.S. occupation.
Al-Kassar, who gave the interview at his home in Marbella, said
that if the charges were true and he did back the insurgency, it
would be "an honor," but he denied the allegations.
"If it were true," al-Kassar told the newspaper, "you would not
find me here."
Al-Kassar stood trial in Spain in 1995 on charges he supplied
assault rifles used by Palestinian militants in the hijacking of
the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985, but was acquitted
for lack of evidence.
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