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Florida plant linked to poison gas
United Press International
September 16, 1990, Sunday, BC cycle
DALLAS
A deceased Iraqi architect linked to a Libyan chemical weapons complex invested $5 million in a Florida cherry flavoring plant as a front to collect and export cyanide compounds that could be used for toxic weapons, a Dallas newspaper reported Sunday.

''Shipments have left the U.S.,'' Kawaja said, ''and technology has left the U.S. We're talking about the research and development of chemical weapons in the United States.''

Ihsan Barbouti's former associates said the Iraqi financier used his investment in an apparent effort to export deadly hydrogen cyanide -- and the technology to produce it -- to Middle East countries identified by the U.S. government as supporters of terrorism, The Dallas Morning News reported in a copyright story.

A chemical weapons expert said hydrogen cyanide is an odorless, colorless gas easily converted into use as a chemical weapon.

Louis Champon, president of the plant, Product Ingredient Technology Inc., in Boca Raton, Fla., said he had no role in the diversion of any toxic material from the facility.

He acknowledged, however, that at least five barrels, or 150 gallons, of a cyanide complex were unaccounted for and could have been taken from the site without his knowledge, the newspaper said.

Champon said he has filed a lawsuit to sever his business relatonship with the Barbouti family. Barbouti died July 1 in London of pneumonia at age 63, authorities said.

Another of Barbouti's former associates, Peter Kawaja, whose company installed a $1 million security system at the plant, said the cyanide was taken from the production facility during ''night trips'' to another site in Florida that he declined to identify.

''Shipments have left the U.S.,'' Kawaja said, ''and technology has left the U.S. We're talking about the research and development of chemical weapons in the United States.''

Kawaja declined to identify the purported final destination of the potentially lethal chemical.

Barbouti, who had a doctorate in architecture, has been identified in several criminal court cases in Europe as the architect of Libyan Col. Moammar Gadhafi's chemical weapons plant in Rabta, about 40 miles from Tripoli.

Champon, who was interviewed by The Morning News Sept. 7 at the office of his attorney, Anthony Pucillo, in West Palm Beach, Fla., said it was his feeling that Barbouti's intention was ''to ship out (the gas) to overseas.''
An executive order by President Ronald Reagan in February 1986, after an outbreak of hostilities between Libya and the United States, made it illegal tosend any U.S.-manufactured goods or technology to Libya. That executive order was extended last year by President Bush.

U.S. Customs Service agents last Thursday interviewed Champon at the U.S. Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Customs and the FBI's foreign counterintelligence services have accelerated their investigation of Barbouti's role in the flavoring plant since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2.

They also are examining his vast holdings in the United States, including high-tech and real estate interests in Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City, Tennessee, New Jersey and New York.

Barbouti's American business associates told The Morning News the international broker also acknowledged ongoing contracts with Iraq and Iran.

Control of his American holdings has been assumed by his son, Haidar Barbouti, who also was in the financing and operation of the Florida flavoring plant, said Champon and Kawaja.

Haidar Barbouti could not be reached for comment at his Manhattan condominium in New York, the newspaper said.

The manufacturing facility produced a cherry flavoring -- known in the industry as natural bitter almond oil -- using a process developed by Champon. The flavoring is used in such commercial products as soft drinks, candies, gum and doughnut icing.

The process involves the distillation of crushed apricot pits and produces not only bitter almond oil, or concentrate for cherry flavoring, but also sugar and hydrogen cyanide byproducts.

Champon said his process neutralizes the hydrogen cyanide gas to a safe liquid form known as ferric ferrocyanide, a common chemical used widely in cleaning solvents. He acknowledged that the ferric ferrocyanide ''easily'' can be reconverted to hydrogen cyanide.

One chemist, a senior university researcher who has been a consultant in the analysis, research and development of chemical warfare for the U.S. Army, said the Boca Raton plant was capable of producing ''significant'' quantities of hydrogen cyanide.

The chemist, who requested anonymity, said that hydrogen cyanide -- in the hands of terrorists -- offers a potential security threat of ''immense'' proportion.