Arms Trafficker Monzer Al Kassar, Associate Imprisoned for Terrorism
Submitted by Jim Kouri on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 07:37
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Monzer Al Kassar, a/k/a "Abu Munawar," a/k/a "El Taous," the leader of an international arms-trafficking ring, was sentenced this week to 30 years in prison for conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to be used to kill Americans in Colombia.
Al Kassar's associate and co-defendant Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the conspiracy. United States District Judge Jed S. Rakoff imposed the sentences Tuesday in the Manhattan federal courtroom.
Al Kassar and Moreno Godoy had both been found guilty on November 20, 2008, following a three-week jury trial, of: conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals; conspiracy to murder U.S. officers; conspiracy to acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles; conspiracy to provide material support and resources to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (the FARC), a designated foreign terrorist organization; and money laundering.
According to the evidence at trial: As part of an undercover DEA sting operation, between February 2006 and June 2007, Al Kassar and Moreno Godoy agreed to sell to the FARC more than 12,000 weapons - including thousands of machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and surface-to-air missile systems, or "SAMs" - along with two million rounds of ammunition.
The agreement was discussed and made during a series of recorded telephone calls, email correspondence, and in-person meetings with two confidential sources working with the DEA, who represented that they were acquiring these weapons for the FARC, with the specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack United States helicopters in Colombia.
During their meetings, Al Kassar provided the DEA undercover agents with, among other things: a schematic of the vessel to be used to transport the weapons; specifications for the SAMs he agreed to sell to the FARC; and bank accounts in Spain and Lebanon which ultimately were used to receive and conceal more than $400,000 sent from DEA undercover accounts that the DEA undercovers said were FARC drug proceeds for the weapons deal.
During his meetings with the DEA undercover agents, Al Kassar reviewed Nicaraguan end-user certificates and accepted them despite knowing that the arms were destined for the FARC in Colombia. Al Kassar also promised to provide the FARC with ton-level quantities of C-4 explosives, as well as expert trainers to teach the FARC how to effectively use C-4 and other explosive devices against the United States.
In addition, Al Kassar offered to send a thousand men to fight with the FARC against U.S. military officers in Colombia, and to make training camps in Al Kassar's country available to the FARC.
In addition to the terms of imprisonment, Judge Rakoff also sentenced both Al Kassar and Moreno Godoy to 5 years supervised release. Al Kassar was also ordered to forfeit all foreign and domestic assets.
This case was the result of cooperation between the DEA, the Spanish National Police, and the Romanian Border Police. Mr. Dassin praised the investigative work of the DEA, the Spanish National Police, and the Romanian Border Police. Mr. Dassin also thanked the United States Department of Justice's Office of International Affairs and the United States Department of State. He further expressed appreciation to the United States Embassies in Spain and Romania.
Author's note: Information for the following news report was obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Jim Kouri, CPP is currently vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and a staff writer for the New Media Alliance .
Terrorism is not a law
Terrorism is not a law enforcement issue. It is a matter of warfare. These 'people' should have been handed over to a military tribunal for summary execution, reprisal against their families, associates or complicit countries. This islamic garbage is not going to be beaten with lawbooks or civilian trials. Soon the arabs will know what professional terrorism looks like.
AIDS.. Hidden Crisis In Arab,
AIDS.. Hidden Crisis In Arab, Islamic Countries
World AIDS Day
By Mustafa Abdel-Halim, IOL Staff
CAIRO, December 1 (IslamOnline.net) - As the number of AIDS patients has risen to a surprising - yet alarming - levels in Arab and Islamic countries over the last few years, many take the blame for the shortcomings to deep-rooted reticence about discussing the epidemic and reluctance of unscrupulous governments and apparently conservative societies to admit it.
Coinciding with World AIDS Day, Saudi Arabia announced Monday, December 1, that 6,787 are living with HIV infection, five times higher than the number of the cases reported by the conservative Islamic kingdom in early August 2002.
In Indonesia, the World's largest Muslim country has a rapidly escalating level of infection among prostitutes, their customers, injection drug users and prisoners.
"Indonesia has one of the fastest growing epidemics in the world," Elizabeth Pisani, an epidemiologist with Aksi Stop AIDS, an AIDS prevention and care group, was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.
In Malaysia, the country now has around 57,000 reported cases of HIV/AIDS compared to 54,000 as of June this year.
But the real number of could easily be more than double the official figure, as many fail to report their condition for fear of stigma or discrimination in conservative mainly-Muslim Malaysia.
In Afghanistan, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that increasing intravenous drug use could see the war-ravaged central Asian risking an AIDS epidemic.
Indian Kashmir, with a 10-million population mostly made up of Muslims, has an estimated 20,000 HIV cases.
In the Middle East countries, the official number of people suffering from the disease hit 750,000.
Much Bigger
However, many analysts said the situation is much more grave, citing unofficial accounts showing the number of those afflicted with HIV/AIDS in on the rise at disturbing levels.
While on paper Indonesia says it doesn't have much of a problem with HIV/AIDS, the World Health Organization and UNAIDS warned in a report this month that the epidemic is in danger of leaping from the high-risk groups and into the mainstream in the Asian country.
"The gap is wider between reported numbers and estimated ones of those plagued by HIV/AIDS in regional countries, due to a plethora of reasons including governments' blackout of the true numbers," Ibrahim al-Kirdani of the World Health Organization's Eastern Mediterranean Region office.
In Egypt, the official number of people having contracted the disease is 1,200m, with the authorities' insistence to underestimate the problem in the most populous Arab countries.
But the estimated number is up to some 8,000, said Zuheir Hallaj, a Cairo-based WHO representative.
Hallaj warned that this stage is "pre-epidemic" period where the disease could be controlled and after which it could slip out of hands.
"What does the government care about is to hide numbers and avert public realization of the crisis," said Magdi Said, a former doctor at Cairo's Endemic Diseases Hospital dealing with AIDS cases.
Lack Of Political Will
Meanwhile, renowned Egyptian writer Salama Ahmed Salama, pointed a finger at the lack of political will to face the issue extremely seriously.
"Many Arab and Islamic countries do rather fear the outrage of the public if they declare the true figures," already taking the toll of economic hardships and political stagnation, Salama said.
A long-time resident of Germany, Salama hoped that Muslim and Arab countries would follow in the footsteps of West in "facing the problem head-on".
Stigma
"Many Arab and Islamic countries do rather fear the outrage of the public if they declare the true figures," Salama
Also, the HIV-related stigma and discrimination most Muslim and Arab societies feel cause untold suffering to people living with the disease, mostly accused of catching the disease through illegal and unreligious sexual interaction.
"This stigma is largely out of fear. And this fear arises out of misunderstanding about the mood of transmission of the infection, its relation to socially unacceptable behaviors and the belief that HIV is a fatal disease" said Hussein Al- Gezairy Regional Director of WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region office.
Gezairy said in a message on the World AIDS Day that as new therapies have been introduced, HIV/AIDS is now regarded as chronic disease that needs unconscious treatment, rather than a fatal disease.
In Malaysia, Drug addicts sharing infected needles made up nearly 80 percent of HIV/AIDS cases while heterosexual transmission was the second highest cause, at nearly 12 percent.
As Terrorism, WMDs
Noticeably, the rich countries are also coming under fire for the lack of action to help fight the disease in developing countries with the same vigor with which they have moved to combat terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the AIDS-afflicted countries.
In an interview with the BBC a few days ago, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "very angry, distressed and helpless", as the world lacks political will to face the disease.
In a rather skeptical cunning note, Annan said that the AIDS epidemic has become the world's biggest security threats along with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
In Afghanistan, where the U.S. forces still make presence for fighting the remnants of the Taliban regime, a less active pace of development is going on in the fight of the disease
"If we don't start raising public awareness of the issue, and focus on prevention, increasing drug use is a serious factor that could push Afghanistan towards the risk of an HIV/AIDS epidemic s," UNICEF's Afghanistan head of health Peter Salama said in a statement ahead of World AIDS day.
The governments also disappointed that their demands for the right to import generic medicines to replace the branded products from the major U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies that they cannot afford, had fallen on deaf ears.
Little action is done, as the companies insist on keeping the rights of the pharmaceutical companies are protected by a World Trade Organization (WTO) "agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights".
Changing
But hope is still there, with many saying the situation could be much better in Arab and Muslim countries within coming years with current efforts to raise public awareness, promote media campaigns and abandon a political manipulation of the disease.
In Indian Kashmir, where public discussion of sex is taboo, has startled elements of its conservative Muslim society by launching its first billboard campaign promoting condoms to combat AIDS.
Signs in the Muslim-majority summer capital Srinagar and other major Kashmir cities feature a huge picture of a condom and a graphic of a man hugging a woman.
"Know AIDS for AIDS," the billboards read in the city, where previous anti-AIDS efforts have stressed Islam's ban on sex outside marriage.
Other campaigns sought the help of religious scholars to raise awareness of the disease and promote religious deterrence to avoid the disease.
"Talks already began with religious people to do this, they are more than ready for helping us," said Kirdani of the U.N. regional office.
Kirdani has recently attended a conference discussing AIDS in Saudi Arabia, something he said "an indication how the host country begin another new positive attitude to face the crisis".
About 45 percent of the HIV/AIDS cases in the Saudi Arabia, whose population hits 22 million including some six million foreigners, were sexually transmitted and that about 77 percent of those infected were male.
But Islam against all forms of extra-marital sex contacts, considering it haram (forbidden), and has long played a key role in turning followers away from one of its main causes.
Five people worldwide die of AIDS every minute of every day. HIV has hit every corner of the globe, infecting more than 42 million men, women and children, 5 million of them last year alone.
In 2002 alone, AIDS claimed 3 million people last year. That's over 8,000 people every day. But the story does not end there: just under 14,000 new cases of HIV infections occur every single day.
more info on the AIDS
more info on the AIDS epidemic in islamic countries
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-12/01/article08.shtml
islamic sites dudes
i wish the same level of
i wish the same level of punishment was given to islamic terrorists in Europe. I am sure the level of benefit cheating and other crimes committed by muslims in Europe will come down significantily if such measures were put in place
stop flooding the page with
stop flooding the page with the same garbage. AIDS is rampant in hindutva India, much more than any Muslim country in the world.
AMIM are you back from
AMIM are you back from Taliban custody.
All terrorist networks have safe haven in Pakistan: Gates
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pak-safe-haven-for-terrorist-networks...
Malaysia brings back 'Allah' ban
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Malaysia-brings-back-Allah-ban/...
Amina bai why are u getting
Amina bai
why are u getting so pissed when I am giving the readers some useful info on islam. i mean ur the no1 copy/paste muslimah, i don't think u should complain.