British firm under scrutiny for export of Bosnian guns to Iraq

British firm under scrutiny for export of Bosnian guns to Iraq


MPs and Amnesty International demand to know if a Nottingham-based company has breached the United Nations arms embargo

Jamie Doward and Johnny McDevitt
Sunday August 12, 2007
The Observer

The government was facing awkward questions last night over an arms deal involving a British company licensed by the Department of Trade and Industry to import weapons but which was also selling machine guns to an Iraqi official later implicated in an alleged $1.1bn (£545m) corruption scandal.

A committee of MPs and Amnesty International have both demanded to know whether the deal breaches either the UN arms embargo on Iraq or British government export laws. They want to know who was involved in the deal and what safeguards are in place to ensure arms exports negotiated by British companies through foreign intermediaries reach their intended destination.

Documents obtained by The Observer show Procurement Management Services (PMS) had a contract to provide assault rifles to Ziad Cattan, the former head of military procurement at the Iraq Defence Ministry.

PMS was licensed by the DTI, now known as the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), to import at least 40,000 assault rifles and AK-47s to Britain from the former Yugoslavia.

Last night the department declined to shed light on whether it knew that, in 2005, PMS also had at least one contract to supply some 300 7.62mm light-machineguns from the former Yugoslavia to Cattan at the Iraq Defence Ministry. Until mid-2005, Cattan, who used to run a pizza parlour in Poland, was responsible for overseeing the importation of weapons into Iraq. A warrant has been issued for his arrest amid allegations he illegally made millions of dollars in corrupt deals.

Supplying weapons to the Iraq government is legitimate through the correct channels and it is not alleged that the PMS deal is being investigated by the Iraqi government as part of the corruption scandal. But by law a British company wanting to export equipment from one overseas country to another must be licensed. In addition, an arms broker needs a licence to export weapons to Iraq because it is subject to an arms embargo. There is no Foreign Office record of any British company being granted a licence to transport guns between Bosnia and Baghdad.

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