Six convicted of arms deals in NY federal court

New York, July 25: An Armenian and South African were convicted by a federal jury of agreeing to smuggle Russian military arms into the United States including rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons.

Artur Solomonyan, 28, from Armenia, and Christiaan Dewet Spies, 35, from South Africa, and four other men were found guilty yesterday in Manhattan federal court of charges including arms trafficking conspiracy and arms trafficking.

Prosecutors said Solomonyan and Spies were the group's ringleaders who met with an informant from 2003 to 2005 and sold him a machine gun and assault weapons and delivered them to Los Angeles, Florida and New York.

The men also attempted to broker other deals, prosecutors said, showing digital photos of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and other weapons from Armenia and Chechnya that they said were also for sale, but those deals were never completed.

But defense lawyers disputed the men could carry out any major arms deals, saying they took almost eight months to produce one machine gun and seven assault weapons that were readily available in the United States.

Both Solomonyan and Spies had been entrapped by the informant and were lured by the promise of green cards, or residency permits, that would allow the two illegal immigrants to work in the United States, defense lawyers argued.

The two men face up to 50 years in prison when they are sentenced on December. 14. Their lawyers said they would appeal the verdicts.

Of the other four men who were convicted, three were Georgians and one was Ukrainian.

Authorities have previously said the informant told the men he had ties to al Qaeda, but they made no such reference during the trial.

The informant, Kelly Davis, 48, also a South African national, did not testify in the trial. Prosecutors said he was suicidal.

Reuters>