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Palestinian gets 25 years for arms smuggling
2009-07-01
NEW YORK (AFP) - A Palestinian businessman guilty of conspiring with a Syrian arms trafficker to export millions of dollars worth of weapons to leftist rebels in Colombia has been sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to authorities. Tareq al-Ghazi, 62, had been tried in March and convicted of conspiracy to murder US officers, to acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles and provide support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). According to the US Justice Department, Ghazi faced 25 years to life in prison for his crimes, but Manhattan federal court judge Jed Rakoff imposed the minimum sentence. According to his indictment, Ghazi conspired with Syrian arms trafficker Monzer al-Kassar "to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons" to FARC, "a designated foreign terrorist organization -- to be used to kill US officers and employees in Colombia," Acting US Attorney Lev Dassin had said. Kassar, who set up the arms deal, was sentenced in February to 30 years in prison, while another accomplice, Chilean national Luis Felipe Moreno, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Ghazi and Moreno were arrested in Bucharest, Romania on June 7, 2007 as they prepared to finalize the weapons transaction. Their extradition was described by the Justice Department as the first time Romania had extradited individuals to the United States on terrorism charges. The US Drug Enforcement Agency carried out an undercover operation in 2006 in which Kassar was video-taped agreeing to sell the FARC more than 12,000 arms and two million rounds of ammunition, which were never delivered. He was captured in June 2007 at the Madrid airport and was later extradited to the United States.
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