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Sunday, June 23, 2002 10:20 p.m. EDT

Kofi Annan Probed Over Machine Gun-Toting Bodyguards

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is investigating United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan over reports that his bodyguards carry illegal submachine guns to protect the number one diplomat.

"Sources in the U.N. Security and Safety Service say that members of Annan's personal protective detail have been using the German-made MP5 submachine guns since 1998," reports the National Rifle Association's "America's 1st Freedom" magazine.

While U.N. officials say the extraordinarily lethal firearms have been cleared with U.S. law enforcement, a spokesman for the BATF's parent agency, the Treasury Department, told the Washington Times earlier this year that Annan's machine gunners have been under investigation since February.

The State Department also has a problem with the illegal Annan arsenal, with a spokesman telling the Times that the U.N. is not a law enforcement agency and therefore its employees are prohibited from packing such high-powered heat.

The U.N. first approached the State Department four years ago hoping to get clearance for the plan to arm Annan's security detail to the teeth - but they were turned down.

But that didn't stop Kofi and Co., who reportedly went ahead and acquired the illegal assault weapons anyway.

"Just how Annan's security detail obtained the guns is the focus of the U.S. government probe," the NRA said.

New York City, where Annan is based, supposedly has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.