Spain to extradite Syrian arms dealer to US

Oct 26, 2007, 14:36 GMT

Madrid - Spain's National Court announced Friday that it had approved the extradition of Syrian arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar to the United States on terrorism-related charges on the condition that he will not be sentenced to death if found guilty.

Al-Kassar, 61, was detained in June at Madrid airport after flying in from the southern Costa del Sol, where he has lived since 1980.

The National Court approved the extradition on charges of a conspiracy to kill US citizens, agents and officials by supplying anti-air missiles and other weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which the tribunal described as a terrorist group.

Spain will only hand over the Syrian, however, if the death penalty is not applied to him and if life imprisonment will not necessarily mean that he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

The court said the Syrian had been an international arms trafficker since the early 1970s, supplying weapons to armed groups engaged in violent conflicts in Nicaragua, Brazil, Cyprus, Bosnia, Croatia, Somalia, Iran and Iraq.

In 2006 and early 2007, al-Kassar and two other suspects agreed to supply the FARC rebels with weapons worth millions of dollars for protecting their cocaine business and for killing US citizens in Colombia, as well as US agents and officials, the court added.

The traffickers also planned to export anti-air missiles to enable the FARC to attack US helicopters. In addition to terrorism-related charges, the US wants to try al-Kassar for money-laundering.

Al-Kassar opposed his extradition, accusing the US of having provoked his offence by sending anti-drug agents to pretend they wanted to purchase arms from him.

He also said the US would not grant an Arab a fair trial, and accused President George W Bush of seeking 'political vengeance.' The court rejected his arguments.

Al-Kassar has the possibility of appealing against the extradition, which also needs to be approved by the Spanish government.

In the early 1990s, al-Kassar was jailed preventatively in Spain for 14 months on charges of involvement in the 1985 Palestinian hijacking of the Italian passenger ship Achille Lauro. He was released on bail and acquitted owing to a lack of evidence.