ZGram - 8/16/2003 - "U.S. Jew among 3 nabbed in plot to smuggle
missile"
zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org
zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org
Sat Aug 16 05:54:58 EDT 2003
ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny: Now more than ever!
August 16, 2003
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
Last night, I received the following from a ZGram reader:
"I found this in an Israeli paper, the Ha'aretz. Try to find any
mention of a Jew being among those arrested for the missile smuggling
sting in any US media. I couldn't. I am sure it was just
inadvertently left out."
_______________________________________________________________
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/329224.html>http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/329224.html
Here is the article itself. Note the headline - couldn't happen in
America, could it?
[START]
U.S. Jew among 3 nabbed in plot to smuggle missile
By Reuters (Haaretz)
NEWARK, New Jersey - An American Jew was among three suspects nabbed
for allegedly attempting to smuggle a missile to terror groups
operating inside the United States in order to down commercial
aircraft.
But the smuggling attempt was in fact a sting operation orchestrated
over the past 18 months by U.S., Russian and British authorities.
Terrorism-related charges were leveled on Wednesday against a British
arms dealer who praised Osama bin Laden and thought he was
smuggling into the United States missiles, federal prosecutors
announced.
Two other suspected accomplices to the plot, inlcuding Yehuda
Abraham, who is Jewish, face conspiracy charges, the prosecutors said.
"This morning, the terrorists who threatened America lost an ally in
their quest to kill our citizens," U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie
told a news conference on the plaza of the federal courthouse in
Newark, New Jersey.
Moments earlier, two of the three suspects appeared before a federal
magistrate amid tight security at the courthouse, where authorities
spelled out charges against them.
Hemant Lakhani, identified as a well-known British arms dealer, was
accused of providing material support to terrorists and of illegal
weapons dealing, Christie said.
A second man, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, was charged with illegally
transmitting money to help finance the plot, Christie said. A third,
Abraham, was due to appear later on Wednesday in federal court in New
York on similar charges.
Lakhani was arrested on Tuesday in Newark after trying to sell a
Russian-made shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile to FBI informants
posing as extremists who wanted to shoot down a large commercial
airliner, officials said.
The missile was intended "specifically for the purpose of shooting an
American airliner out of the sky," Christie said.
Meanwhile in London, police said they searched two sites at the
request of U.S. authorities in the sting operation. No arrests were
made, and officials declined to say where they were carried out.
Lakhani, wearing a rumpled striped shirt, bowed his head and said
nothing during his court appearance. A lawyer representing Lakhani
later declined to comment to reporters.
The charge of providing support to terrorists carries a possible
15-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine, while the weapons
charges could mean 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
Lakhani and Hameed were each given a court date for later this month
to determine if they might be released on bail.
According to a criminal complaint, the sting began in December 2001,
when officials learned about Lakhani from an informant.
They used the unidentified informant to contact Lakhani, a British
citizen born in India, and investigators said they audiotaped and
videotaped 150 conversations between the two men. Lakhani made a
number of anti-U.S. remarks during those talks, it said.
"He on many occasions referred to Americans as bastards (and) Osama
bin laden as a hero who had done something right and set the
Americans straight," Christie said. Bin Laden's al Qaeda group is
blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
"Mr. Lakhani knew full well what he was doing, why he was doing it,
and ... he very clearly expressed his sentiments toward this country
and its citizens," he said.
The informant pretended to Lakhani that he represented a Somali group
that wanted to purchase an anti-aircraft missile, the complaint said.
The Somali group told Lakhani they would pay $85,000 for a sample
missile and promised to purchase 50 more later.
The complaint said Lakhani told the informant "ours is a much higher
quality" surface-to-air missile that those were fired in November
2002 at an Israeli passenger plane taking off from Mombasa, Kenya,
but did not hit the aircraft.
The third suspect, Abraham, took a $30,000 partial payment on behalf
of Lakhani, it said.
Another payment of $500,000, which the U.S. Attorney said was 10
percent of the price, was in the works to purchase the additional
missiles.
Hameed, who is from Malaysia, was only brought into the scheme in the
last couple days to handle the larger payment, but money never
changed hands, it said.
Russian authorities who worked in the sting provided an inert missile
that was shipped to the United States. Lakhani was arrested when he
tried to retrieve it at a Newark hotel, authorities said.
[END]
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