Seized Missles Were Legally Held, Official Says

Reuters/Yahoo ^ | 8-19-2002

[blam]

Seized Missiles Were Legally Held, Official Says

Mon Aug 19, 8:24 AM ET

ROSWELL, New Mexico (Reuters) - Thousands of missiles seized by federal agents from a counter-terrorism school in New Mexico were licensed and had been obtained legally, an official of the school said on Monday.

David Hudak -- president of HEAT, or High Energy Access Tools, an antiterrorism and police-training services company -- was arrested last week on federal explosives and immigration charges.

Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms said they found 49 crates of armor-piercing missiles at the school, which had clients from Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, and believe there are about another 4,000 pounds of munitions on the premises.

Frank Fish, HEAT's director of security, said he expected Hudak, a Canadian, to be charged later on Monday. Fish said Hudak's visa had expired but insisted his boss had come by the weapons legally.

"The weapons that he had are licensed. We do have the paperwork for that," Fish said on CBS's "The Early Show."

"I'm sure after the ATF have finished their look, they'll see that everything is in order."

The weapons had come through customs legally from Canada and were on HEAT's inventory, which had been inspected by the ATF, Fish said.

ATF agents said on Sunday they had seized over 2,300 unregistered missiles at the school, but there was no reason to think Hudak had any ties to terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.

Hudak, 41, was charged with possessing missiles that were not registered to him, according to a criminal complaint filed on Friday by federal officials at the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

Federal agents found small missiles in 49 explosives crates, according to court records, with 48 missiles in each crate inspected, according the complaint.

Agents seized about 1,000 pounds of munitions from the school last week, including the missiles and launchers, and said they expect to find several thousand pounds of additional munitions in searches this week.

ATF officials allege that Hudak falsified records to obtain the weapons for the school.

Roswell, in southeastern New Mexico, is famous for unconfirmed rumors that a UFO crashed near the city in 1947.

[guitfiddlist]

ATF agents said on Sunday ...there was no reason to think Hudak had any ties to terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.

Roswell, in southeastern New Mexico, is famous for unconfirmed rumors that a UFO crashed near the city in 1947.

There were further unconfirmed rumors that the ATF was actually a useful agency doing something constructive in the war on terrorism.

[American in Israel]

What good is all the gun registration paperwork, if the ATF does not bother to read it before they kick in the doors? Is the address line all they are interested in?

[American in Israel]

What good is all the gun registration paperwork, if the ATF does not bother to read it before they kick in the doors? Is the address line all they are interested in?

[American in Israel]

Uh oh, a fully automatic post button! I guess I should register that...

[hopespringseternal]

The ATF was just jealous they haven't been in the news lately.

[hgro]

ATF is still trying to pull another Waco.

[mewzilla]

Why do I think after reading this that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing...?

[Mr. Jeeves]

"I'm sure after the ATF have finished their look, they'll see that everything is in order."

I'm sure they will say it isn't, just to justify the raid.

[fourdeuce82d]

Thousands of missiles

minor point- "missiles" are guided, the correct term is "rockets"- other version of the story I read said it was actually the warheads that were stored, not the complete assembly.

[sidegunner]

[....jealous they hadn't had any press..]

Is it funding time again????( just like it was in Waco???)

[Maelstrom]

Make a fool of yourself here!

[maximus@Nashville]

OK, so the ATF has an immigrant in custody who was found in New Mexico on an expired visa. What are the chances of an illegal alien in the southwestern USA being Canadian?

[Red Jones]

you mean our friendly BATF has put their nazi boots on again and is walking all over citizens?

[Dead Corpse]

What else do you expect them to do? It's in their job description.

[FormerLurker]

I'm surprised that they didn't call in an airstrike to "neutralize" any opposition or "inconvenient" evidence....

[lepton]

It's amazing how different the tone is on different threads. I was on an earlier one where people went berzerk at the question, of whether this was a real threat or a paperwork issue, being asked.

[dcwusmc]

Exactly correct. The BATFags are interested in nothing but:

a. self-aggrandizement;
b. bigger budgets; and
c. putting honest weapons dealers and owners behind bars for the most trivial of offences.

Their tactics include planting evidence, stomping pets to death, using SWAT-type raids to correct paperwork errors, causing licensed and innocent firearms dealers' pregnant wives to miscarry, and numerous other tactics calculated to get ordinary people killed or jailed for life. It is my opinion that these piss-poor excuses for human beings should be french-fried an inch at a time for their well-documented violations of the Constitution.

[DWSUWF]

"...It is my opinion that these piss-poor excuses for human beings should be french-fried an inch at a time for their well-documented violations of the Constitution..."

I was with you 100% until I got to this part.

Any right-minded person knows that they should have their spam-smeared heads forced into cages containing starving rats...

[dcwusmc]

OK... we french-fry them from the waste down, THEN smear their heads with spam and open the cages to the rats. In particularly egregious cases we can dispense with the boiling oil and just tie their legs together, put a couple HUNGRY rats over their midsection, cover them with a steel pot and light a fire on top of the pot... guess what happens next??? As the panicked rats try to escape???? (VC used this as a method of entertaining some of our troops they caught outside the wire at night. You can imagine how well it was received by the guys inside the wire.)