Friday, February 6, 2009

German Businessman Charged With Selling Missile Materials To Iran


Not a huge headline today but I thought an interesting one...in that you really don't put together weapons deals happening between a German businessman and the looney tune mullahs in Iran but apparently, the evidence is there.

Here's some of the details of what the Germans are charging their citizen with from the article at Forbes:


German prosecutors said Friday that they have charged a businessman with violating export laws for allegedly setting up an unsuccessful deal to sell to Iran material that could have been used for building missiles.
The federal prosecutors accuse the 63-year-old, identified only as Hans-Josef H., of illegally trying to export high-quality graphite and violating international sanctions by attempting to deliver goods to a blacklisted recipient in Iran.

Between June 2005 to June 2007, they said, the man organized a circuitous deal through an unnamed partner in Turkey to deliver the graphite to Iran. The graphite was listed as being of a lower quality.

The other odd thing about this story is that Iran would have been in such a position that this is their best way to get their missile building materials? Hard to believe that mighty Iran would need to rely on some German business dude in a leisure suit funneling some stuff through a Turkish gofer. Seems a bit odd to me that the Iranians could set up a huge deal with the Russians in plain sight of the world to acquire nuclear technology but have to deal in graphite with some beer-toting German sitting in a biergarten. I guess this was the mullahs' way of spreading the wealth.


German charged over attempted Iran deal

German prosecutors said Friday that they have charged a businessman with violating export laws for allegedly setting up an unsuccessful deal to sell to Iran material that could have been used for building missiles.
The federal prosecutors accuse the 63-year-old, identified only as Hans-Josef H., of illegally trying to export high-quality graphite and violating international sanctions by attempting to deliver goods to a blacklisted recipient in Iran.

Between June 2005 to June 2007, they said, the man organized a circuitous deal through an unnamed partner in Turkey to deliver the graphite to Iran. The graphite was listed as being of a lower quality.
Another delivery, intended for an unnamed Iranian recipient that also was blacklisted, was intercepted by Turkish customs officials.
"It was possible to prevent delivery of the material, which could be used in building missiles," the prosecutors said in a statement.
The man, from the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, was arrested in June 2008 and remains in custody.
Prosecutors said the charges - 12 counts of violating export laws - were filed on Jan. 7. No date for a trial was set.

2 comments:

Maggie Thornton said...

It is odd. Maybe the Germans didn't want everything known????

Holger Awakens said...

Howdy Maggie!

:Holger Danske