http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3960925
Missile-Selling British Hindu Businessman 'Was Entrapped'
By Mark Sage, PA, in Newark, New Jersey
A British small-time businessman offered to sell 200 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to be used in a plot to terrorise the United States, a court heard.
Hemant Lakhani, 69, told an undercover FBI agent that the rockets could be used to shoot down 10 to 15 airlines simultaneously on the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist outrage.
Lakhani, from Hendon, north London, denies the accusations, and rejects further charges that he promised to sell a radioactive “dirty bomb”.
He claims he is the victim of an entrapment operation by American, British and Russian intelligence agencies, under pressure to catch terror suspects following September 11.
Stuart Rabner, prosecuting, told the jury in New Jersey yesterday: “This case is about a man who enthusiastically tried to sell 200 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to people who he believed would use them to shoot down planes in the sky, with people aboard, as part of a terrorist attack on the United States.
“He spent more than a year and a half eagerly trying to make this deal happen, actively trying to smuggle 200 shoulder-fired missiles into the United States, all the time issuing advice on how to shoot planes out of the sky in order to shake the US economy.”
Mr Rabner told the jury at New Jersey District Court, in Newark, that Lakhani praised terror chief Osama bin Laden for the September 11 attacks.
Lakhani was arrested in August 2003 at a hotel overlooking Newark Airport, moments after allegedly presenting a single “sample” missile to the FBI informant, called Air Haji.
Lakhani was arrested and charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to terrorists, one count of unlawful brokering of foreign defence articles, two counts of money laundering, and one count of attempting to import merchandise into the US by means of false statements.
He has been in custody in New Jersey since.
Mr Rabner told the jury there was a “mood of celebration” in the hotel room moments before it was stormed by FBI and Customs officers.
He told jurors that Lakhani had offered advice on how to carry out a terrorist attack.
Lakhani advised: “You must target 10 to 15 different airports at the same time,” he said. Lakhani noted that there would be an average of 400 people on each commercial airliner and the busiest days for air travel were Monday and Friday.
Mr Rabner said Lakhani had worked as a clothing merchant for many years.
But he was “far more than a clothing merchant”.
In recent years, he claimed, Lakhani had been trying to break into the international arms trade.
The missile Lakhani obtained as a sample for the FBI informant was a Russian-made Igla SA18.
As he was soliciting a Ukrainian arms company in search of the rockets, the Russian intelligence service – the FSB – got wind of the plot.
They set Lakhani up, providing him with a dud and shipping it to the United States.
In one of about 200 tape recordings of conversations between Lakhani and Haji, Lakhani allegedly praised al-Qaida chief bin Laden, because he “had straightened these idiots” on September 11, 2001.
“He did a very good job,” Lakhani allegedly said.
During one meeting Haji, who was posing as a representative of a Somali terrorist group, made it clear the sale would be illegal.
Lakhani told him: “Whatever he asked for is available. You can get as many pieces as you want. The job can be done, 100%.” In another secretly-recorded meeting, the court heard, Lakhani said: “Eventually our dreams will become a reality.
Indian-born Lakhani, who is a strict Hindu, added: “If Allah blesses us we can finish this.”
The pair also discussed whether Lakhani could obtain a radioactive dirty bomb.
Lakhani offered Haji such a device for £1.6 million, saying: “The item is available.”
Mr Rabner accepted that Lakhani was set up but suggested it was not entrapment.
“Was he set up? Yes. He set himself up by reaching out on the advice of a terrorist to the wrong person – to someone who was working in cooperation with law enforcement and was passing that information back to them,” he said.
But Lakhani’s defence lawyer, Henry Klingeman, painted a picture of a man overcome by the temptation to make a massive multi-million pound sale.
“He spent his adult life in search of the almighty British Pound,” he said.
He accepted the general case against his client as true and asked, therefore “how can Mr Lakhani be not guilty?” “The answer is one word: entrapment,” he said.
Lakhani, dressed in a charcoal suit and with greying hair, looked on as Mr Klingeman said his client had no criminal history, no links to terrorism and no sympathies with Islamic extremism.
He added that Lakhani was “utterly incapable” of conceiving and carrying out the missile plot without the aid of intelligence agencies.
The FBI agent, Haji, was a former drug trafficker, Mr Klingeman said, who had apparently become a professional informant to escape jail.
By contrast, Lakhani had lived in Britain for 40 years after training as a lawyer and marrying his wife Kusum.
Mr Klingeman said Lakhani was targeted by the FBI which was under pressure to catch terrorists following September 11.
“September 11 has put enormous pressure on the (US) Government, specifically on the FBI, to prevent future September 11s and to apprehend those who would do us harm.
“You could lock up Mr Lakhani and throw away the key and it would make no difference. He is not a terrorist.
“The government manufactured this. The evidence will show that the government came up with the idea to bring missiles into the United States. Mr Lakhani did not.
“The Government implanted in Mr Lakhani’s mind the idea to try and obtain these missiles.
“How is that making us safer?”
Mr Klingeman confirmed Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, played a role in the operation and compared it to a film by Steven Spielberg.
“Like a Hollywood movie, this case is a work of fiction,” he said.
He added: “If the Government had not come looking for Mr Lakhani, Mr Lakhani would be sitting in the living room of his modest north London home right now asking his wife for some more hot tea no missiles coming to the US, no threat to the US.”
The trial continues.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/print_apress_011905_missileplotsurgery.html
Alleged Missile Plotter To Undergo Heart Surgery
(Newark -AP, January 19, 2005) — A British businessman on trial for allegedly trying to sell shoulder-fired missiles to a terrorist group will undergo heart surgery as early as Thursday because of blocked arteries, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Hemant Lakhani, 69, has appeared frail since the start of the trial Jan. 4 and indicated he was feeling ill in court last Thursday. He was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Hospital & Medical Center in Paterson later that evening and the trial was postponed.
During a brief hearing Wednesday, Lakhani's lawyer told U.S. District Judge Katharine Hayden the defendant needs angioplasty. Defense attorney Henry Klingeman said a healthy person would need two weeks to recover from the procedure, but that his client may need more time.
Klingeman said Lakhani suffers from gout and has two hernias, and has suffered from hypertension in the past.
The judge said Lakhani's wife and son would be allowed to visit him in the hospital. After the hearing, Lakhani's wife said she saw her husband Tuesday and that he was tired and weak.
Lakhani's doctor on Tuesday said he did not expect Lakhani would be able to return to court for at least a week, regardless of whether surgery was needed.
Lakhani faces charges including attempting to provide material support to terrorists and attempting to sell arms without a license, counts that carry a combined sentence of 25 years. He has denied all charges and any links to terrorism.
The trial, which was expected to last at least 10 weeks, has so far centered on the testimony of the government's key witness, Mohammed Habib Rehman, a confidential informant who posed as the representative of an east African terrorist group interested in purchasing a missile.
The government has presented details of the plot through taped telephone conversations and video surveillance of meetings between Lakhani and Rehman.
Klingeman maintains his client, a clothing merchant with no prior criminal record, is a victim of government entrapment.
Surveillance videos shown to jurors have shown the physical toll the case appears to have taken on Lakhani, who has been imprisoned since his arrest in a Newark hotel room in August 2003. In the tapes, Lakhani looks healthy and Klingeman said his client appears to weigh considerably more than he does now.
Lakhani has had little to eat or drink since his trial began, his doctor told the judge Tuesday.