LONDON, Sept 23 (Reuters) – A British arms broker who arranged illegal deals to supply ex-Soviet surface-to-air missile systems to South Sudan and fighter jets to Libya during its civil war was on Wednesday jailed in a London court for 16 years.
David Greenhalgh, 68, was convicted in June of 10 counts of involvement in the unlicensed supply of arms, also including AK-47 rifles, battle tanks and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, between 2009 and 2016.
Greek national Christos Farmakis, 48, was convicted of nine offences, though he was tried in his absence and his current whereabouts is unknown.
Judge Sally-Ann Hales sentenced both men to 16 years’ imprisonment, saying they repeatedly sought to breach arms export bans to sell weaponry for significant profits.
Prosecutors said only one charge involved the actual supply of weaponry, with the pair selling a former Ukrainian S-125 Pechora missile system to South Sudan, where Greenhalgh and Farmakis had “very close connections to senior figures”.
South Sudan was still formally part of Sudan until it achieved independence in 2011, prosecutor Edmund Burge told jurors at Southwark Crown Court, meaning the semi-autonomous region was subject to a British arms embargo.
Greenhalgh and Farmakis also arranged to supply weapons to Iran, Iraq and Syria in breach of arms embargoes, before Farmakis was arrested in 2016.
Farmakis was caught after using his email address for his job at the government-funded Greater London Enterprise to privately arrange arms deals.
Burge said Farmakis’ email account forwarded an email to his boss, which led to the authorities discovering documents relating to plans to sell fighter jets and other arms to Libya in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by William James)
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