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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