British firm under scrutiny for export of Bosnian guns to Iraq

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Source: The Observer (UK)

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 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. ~snip~

The documents show in February 2005 the machineguns were shipped out of Bosnia-Herzegovina on behalf of PMS, a small company based on an industrial estate in Nottingham, and on to Baghdad. The final intended recipient of the weapons was the 'Republic of Iraq Ministry of Defence, Dr Ziad Cattan, Deputy Secretary General.'

The weapons were transported by rail and air by a little-known Croatian-registered company, Scout, which is run from a fifth-floor flat in Zagreb by Ivan Peranec, a publicity-shy travel agent turned arms dealer with links to former leading figures in the Bosnian army. Over the past five years Peranec's company has shipped thousands of weapons to registered arms dealers including the Alabama-based Taos Industries which has a $34m contract from the Pentagon to supply the Iraqi military. ~snip~

'Our own investigations into weapons being supplied to Iraq have revealed shocking failures in the export controls process,' Sprague said. 'As a result, some of these arms are being used to commit atrocities - and no one has been held to account.' ~snip~


Read more: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2147204,00.html