Colonel charged with gun smuggling (Iran Contra Figure)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Politico


A retired U.S. Air Force colonel charged in the 1980s in an Iran-contra related weapons smuggling case has been indicted in a U.S. federal court in Miami with conspiring with an Israeli aeronautics engineer to illegally export 2,000 AK-47s to Somalia.

The June 17 indictment against Joseph O’Toole, 79, now based in Claremont, California, was unsealed today. POLITICO earlier Monday reported on the indictment of his Israeli co-defendant, Chanoch Miller. Miller, an Israeli citizen and former executive Israeli defense firm Radom Aviation, was arrested in Miami on June 18th and his indictment was unsealed on June 21.

O’Toole , then described as a Santa Ana-based aviation consultant, was charged in 1989 with conspiring with a controversial Israeli self-described former Mossad agent, Ari Ben-Menashe, and a Connecticut resident Richard St. Francis, with trying to sell three U.S. C-130 air cargo planes to Iran. But the charges against O’Toole were dropped in 1991 during the first Gulf War.

Beginning in April, according to the indictment, Miller and O’Toole conspired to obtain and transport hundreds of AK-47s from Bosnia to the northern Somalian city of Banderal, using false end user certificates of Chad, in violation of U.S. arms export control laws. Somalia is under a UN arms embargo. But the transport services source they contacted turned out to be an informant for the U.S. Customs and Immigrations Enforcement (ICE) agency, the indictment describes.





Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39130.html

[GlennWRECK]

1. And another one bites the dust...

[RamboLiberal]

2. Hope he goes down and down hard this time

Got away with it once, probably thought he was untouchable. Wonder how many of the AK's in third world countries are supplied by American cretins like this POS.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Straight-forward but fascinating read none the less. So this is just one way those guns get in...

...Somali hands.

I'm grateful that the transport service they used ratted them out. I hope they got a fat chunk of the money wired. Plus, since the money likely came from Somali warlords or some equally-shadowy and unscrupulous figure, that $116,000 is being sorely missed and someone's nuts are probably already in a vice over it.

Probably someone whose nuts have evaded the vice for too long as it is.

PB

[madokie]

8. I would say the money probably came from American interest

people here who want something that is there. Keeping the area in turmoil allows for the easy stealing of their natural resources.

Natural resources: uranium and largely unexploited reserves of iron ore, tin, gypsum, bauxite, copper, salt, natural gas and likely oil reserves, not to mention the fish offshore

[Soylent Brice]

4. K&R

[LawnKorn]

5. Proof that the Reagan Administration dealt with individuals who have a genetic propensity for crime

The people in the Reagan Administration were criminals who felt comfortable dealing with other criminals. Ollie North, are you hearing this?

[madokie]

9. Some of the same heads as was with bush1 and bush the lesser

All from the same pool

[SpiralHawk]

6. Republicon Family Crime Values

This Republicon jerk is aiding and abetting the slaughter in Africa.

Republicon 'hero' Ollie North gave our U.S. Hawk missiles to the 'Evil Doers' in Iran -- so they could shoot them at our honorable sons and daughters in the Armed Forces.

Ptooooey on Republicon Family Crime Values.

[Enthusiast]

7. One would think, at 79 years old,

the guy would have enough money without resorting to this kind of thing.

[Blue_Tires]

11. that was my thought as well...

or he must be pretty bored to keep playing "soldier of fortune" instead of hitting the golf course...

[Solly Mack]

10. k/r