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发帖数: 901 | 1 SAN FRANCISCO – The Ivory Coast army colonel arrived in New York on Aug. 29
, and authorities say he planned to return home days later with $4 million
in guns and ammunition his country purchased from a suburban Washington D.C.
broker.
Instead, Col. Nguessan Yao is being held in federal custody in a Northern
California jail and the broker is scheduled to appear in court next week to
answer charges that the two conspired to illegally circumvent a worldwide
arms embargo of violence-plagued Ivory Coast.
The case has all the elements of a spy thriller, right down to a mysterious
"Mr. X" — the man who launched the saga by tipping federal authorities in
July 2009.
Since then, the West African nation's ministers of defense and finance, some
diplomats and other government officials of the world's largest cocoa
producer have been implicated in an alleged scheme to smuggle guns into a
country under a United Nations arms embargo.
They are accused of paying $3.8 million to undercover agents posing as
American arms dealers for 4,000 9-millimeter Glock handguns, 200,000 bullets
and 50,000 tear gas grenades in violation of the arms embargo.
The Ivory Coast officials make little effort to conceal their involvement.
They argue that government security forces are poorly armed and outgunned by
opposition forces intent on using violence to influence the outcome of the
first presidential election in more than five years on Oct. 31.
The opposition, in turn, raises similar accusations about the government.
Yao, who is being held without bail, was transferred to Northern California
because the lead investigators in the case are based in San Jose. He was
assigned a public defender and pleaded not guilty with assistance of a
French interpreter Sept. 29. His lawyers didn't return phone calls.
Michael Shor, a suburban Washington D.C. trade consultant, who was arrested
in April and has since agreed to work with investigators, is scheduled to
appear in San Jose federal court on Thursday. He is free on $100,000 bail
and is expected to enter a plea to charges of conspiring to violate the
embargo and exporting weapons without a proper government permit. He is
accused of serving as the deal's middleman, introducing the buyers to the
sellers.
Each defendant faces up to 10 years in prison.
Shor anticipated netting about $250,000 for brokering the deal, according to
court records, which also depict Shor telling an undercover agent that he
represented the country's minister of defense, Michel Amani N'Guessan.
"I have an exclusive agreement," Shor is recorded as saying to the agent
during a wiretapped phone conversation on Aug. 25, 2009. "They name myself
and my company as an agent for the government in Cote d'Ivoire to, to handle
military equipment."
The defense minister publicly proclaimed the government's need for the
weapons on Sept. 16.
He said that without the weapons "Ivory Coast could see a catastrophe."
In an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, former Defense Minister
Bertin Kadet, now a top security adviser to President Laurent Gbagbo said
that the Ivorian government still hasn't been officially notified by the
United States that one of its citizens has been arrested.
"We're getting all our information from the press," he said.
Meanwhile, Kadet said the government desperately needs the type of weapons
at the center of the U.S. criminal case to keep violence at bay.
"How are we supposed to hold elections, if we can't keep the peace?" Kadet
said. "The U.N. mission in Ivory Coast isn't responsible for security, we
are."
The U.N. in 2004 placed an arms embargo on the Ivory Coast after the
government broke a peace accord that was supposed to end civil war in the
divided West Africa nation. The ban includes sales of arms or any related
material, which includes tear gas grenades.
The nation has been struggling to hold a presidential election over the last
year. A date for elections has been set and missed six times. Gbagbo's term
officially expired five years ago.
The United Nations Security Council announced last month that up to 500
peacekeepers would be sent to the Ivory Coast to provide security during the
election.
Kadet, the presidential adviser, said that much of the country's violence
has subsided since a peace accord was signed in 2007.
"If you want us to get out of this crisis, all you need to do is let us have
the equipment we need to hold peaceful elections," he said.
It was against this backdrop that Col. Yao arrived in New York on Aug. 29 to
close the weapons deal, U.S. government officials charge. He inspected the
weapons in New Jersey two days later and explained he needed an invoice
showing Ivory Coast purchasing $3.8 million in computer and electrical
equipment, as well as a separate invoice showing purchase of $3.8 million in
weapons.
The colonel was about to board an airplane home when he was arrested on Sept
. 9 in New York and charged with attempting to export weapons without
obtaining a license required by th |
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