The case of some foreign gun dealers arrested last year in Romania and sued now in the US is unveiling hot, so far confidential information on negotiations that took place in Romania. The way the 'Prince was Marbella', that is Syrian Monzer Al-Kassar, involved in the network of Viktor Bout, the 'merchant of death', was caught is relevant of it. A Manhattan federal court is now investigating the Monzer Al-Kassar case. According to New York Times, the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) detected by undercover mission an operation meant to send from Romania to Surinam a Greek ship loaded with guns and missiles of million dollars, supposed to reach the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). Syrian Monzer All-Kassar was the head of it. One undercover DEA agent met with Kassar's men in a Bucharest hotel to decide on the final pay. Tareq Al-Ghazi was caught in Romania in June 2007 by the US agents, together with Luis Felipe Moreno Godoz. Kassar's Chilean accountant had been arrested one day before on the Madrid-Barajas Airport, on grounds of a warrant from the federal court of the New York south district, relying on information provided by the Romanian judicial authorities. The US authorities charged the three with supplying weapons of mass destruction to a terrorist group, as they were involved in trafficking in guns meant for the Colombian Marxist rebels in the FARC. Undercover DEA operation Marc Agnifilo, Ghazi's lawyer, claims the DEA trapped his client in an "unprecedented" undercover operation, whose real target was Kassar and which broke the law, as it progressed in a foreign country. The agent accompanied Ghazi on the plane flying from Romania to New York , telling the US government was actually interested in Kassar. The 'business' relationship between Ghazi and Kassar started in Poland in the 80s and it effected in several gun transactions in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Yemen, most of them on behalf of some Palestinian terrorist groups. This 'friendship' made the DEA open a complex under cover operation, by which the two were caught trying to send from Romania to Surinam a Greek ship carrying guns and missiles of million dollars to reach the FARC. Ghazi was approached in May 2005 in the south of Lebanon, where he was living together with his wife, actually making a living by selling religious objects on streets. He was reached by an US agent who introduced himself as Samir, a prosperous businessman. Samir pretended he had contracts for the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) that Ghazi had been a member of. And Ghazi made some confessions to the US agent. He said he had helped the PLF leader Abu Abbas flee by a private plane to Yugoslavia, after the group had hijacked the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985. He also said he had planned to assassinate the President of Egypt Anwar Al-Sadat in Cote D'Ivoaire. And the conversation got to Kassar. Samir proposed a transaction to which his help would have been "benefic": 1,000 rifles to be sold to an unidentified customer in Cote D'Ivoire. Ghazi agreed in the end and the two dealers together with the undercover US agent met in December 28, 2006 in southern Lebanon. (...)

Bogdan GALCA