Prosecutors say Monzer al-Kassar not only sold weapons, but he sold them to terrorists who were out to kill Americans.
By Benjamin Weiser
New York Times
NEW YORK — For more than 30 years, prosecutors say, Monzer al-Kassar, a Syrian-born merchant, has been involved in illegal arms deals and money laundering. On Wednesday, as his trial opened in Federal District Court in Manhattan, prosecutors told the jury about what they said were his plans to sell arms to rebels who wanted to kill Americans.
Brendan R. McGuire, a prosecutor, said that Mr. Kassar and his co-defendant had “agreed together to put an arsenal of weapons, explosives and missiles into the hands of terrorists.”
But what Mr. Kassar and the co-defendant, Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, did not know, Mr. McGuire said, was that the deal was an elaborate sting operation run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which was using informants to pose as brokers seeking arms for a Colombian terrorist organization.
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