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°
Healing
news. According to Associated Press (
At
the end of May 2000 an attempt was made to fly four helicopters by Ilyushin freighter from
It
becomes imperative to obtain a clear image of
Based
on data of inside informers and that of the International Peace and Information Service
(hereafter IPIS), this report will try to show, how often intricate networks
involved in arms running to conflict-torn countries operate and, more
specifically, the involvement of
IPIS
is an independent study and information service, covering international
relations in general and in particular carrying out studies on arms trade,
mercenary organisations and related subjects. It operates as an intermediary
between, on the one hand, journalists and the research community and, on the
other, peace, human rights and
Our
own data has been gathered from local informers and freelance investigators,
who for their own safety, are not mentioned by name.
Certain
companies are known to have organised arms traffic from their
Of the four following companies, which have
been involved in arms running, one is still present in
▪
Aero
▪ Avicon
Aviation
▪
▪ Air Charter Service.
The involvement in arms’ running of a fifth
company, Johnsons Air, is described at the near end
of this document.
1. According to IPIS, a company named Seagreen
operated, until 1996, out of Belgium and was observed to be involved in arms
trafficking. In November 1996, a Belgian daily, Het Belang
van Limburg, revealed that two airlines based at Ostend
Airport, Sky Air (see further on) and Seagreen, had
been actively trafficking arms to Rwanda and to Goma
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
This had been going on throughout 1994 and 1995 during an UN-arms embargo on
Rwanda. Empty planes of both companies took off in Ostend,
to Burgas in Bulgaria, where boxes with AK47 riffles
and ammunition of the company Kintex were loaded and flown to Central
Africa. The owner of Seagreen, David
The Times of Zambia reported that an aircraft operated
by Seagreen, registered and licensed in Belgium,
shuttled between Belgian airports and South Africa with arms cargo, that was
off-loaded in
A letter from the Angolan government to United Nations sanctions
committee chairman Robert Fowler also reveals that David Tokoph
constructed an airstrip at Mwansabombwe, an
insignificant village on Zambia’s borders with Angola and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo respectively. A Hercules C-130, registered as 9J-AFV,
used to take off from this Tokoph-airstrip to unknown
destinations. The end-user of the plane was Chani
Fisheries, a Zambian company of the vice-chairman of Aero Zambia, Moses Katumbi, authorized to operate the plane temporarily in
Zambia only. According to IPIS research, the man behind Chani
Fisheries is a Congolese wealthy businessman, Raphael Soriano alias Katebe Katoto,
who owns industrial fisheries in the lakes Tanganyika and Mweru,
a copper and cobalt trading company and a luxurious domain in Bruges, Belgium,
named ‘Ter Heyde’ as well,
and besides who in October 2001 announced that he would run for president
during the transition period of the DRC. However, the C-130, manufactured in
the USA and considered as an unclassified defence article, was grounded in
Angola in September 1997, when it appeared that Katebe
Katoto Soriano had tried to
sell the aircraft to a Portugal-based trading company, in contravention of
sales conditions imposed by the American Office of Defence Trade Controls.
Further investigation revealed that just before the illicit sales agreement
between Chani and the Portugal-based company was
concluded, the Hercules C-130 had apparently been used for the delivery of
military equipment to the rebel troops of Laurent Kabila
approaching
In its report of
Aero
In May 1987, a Belgian parliamentary commission of enquiry confirmed,
that Santa Lucia
Airways was indeed operating in Belgium as a subcontractor to the
Belgian national airline Sabena and was connected to illegal weapons flights to
Iran and to Unita in Angola as well, via the military
base of Kamina in the Congo. [3] Santa Lucia had until May 1987 an
office at Ostend Airport, where its aircraft was also
periodically stored for maintenance purposes. Details, for instance, were known
of a Santa Lucia Boeing 707, registered as J6-SLF (*2), linked to an illicit shipment of weapons to
Another question remains as to what a mystery Aero Zambia aircraft was
doing in
In May 1996, the Board of Directors of Aero Zambia decided to open a
branch office at the Ostend Airport, but moved its
office in August 2003 from the airport to the Ostend
Jet Center, where the Russian arms dealer Victor Bout
started in 1995 his murky business (see further on). Officially the activities
of the Ostend branch had to remain confined to the
representation of the company under Zambian law in Belgium and Europe. It was
the Ostend branch that, at the end of May 2000, had
been ordered by the Brussels firm Demavia to arrange the
above-mentioned transfer by plane of the
four helicopters destined for Laurent Kabila.
David Tokoph, a fervent supporter of George
Bush Jr and the proud owner and simultaneously
operator of a F-100 Super Sabre fighter, based in El Paso, is still very active
in the air business, since in August 1997 he took over the
2. A British airline, named Sky Air Cargo, used Ostend Airport in 1996 as the home base for its then 33
year-old Boeing 707, Liberian-registered as EL-JNS (*3). In October 1996, the plane flew a number of
boxes containing Kalashnikovs from Bulgaria to Rwanda. [4] In 1997 it made at least 25 flights
from Ostend. The plane was also seen several times
from 1996 to 1998 on the military apron of Otopeni
airport, near Bucharest, Romania. Under suspicion of illicit actions, the
aircraft then adopted the airport of Sharjah (United Arab
Emirates) as its new home. In 1998 Sky Air was, together with Air Atlantic
Cargo, responsible for airlifting some 2,000 Kalashnikovs, 180
rocket-launchers, 50 machine-guns and ammunition from Bulgaria to the
UN-embargoed Sierra Leone, by order of the London-based private military
corporation (PMC), Sandline International. [5] The Pakistani owner of Sky Air, Sayed Naqvi,
admitted that his company delivered the weapons, and on May 10, The Observer reported that it had obtained documents that
confirm details about a Sky Air arms flight. The Sky Air Boeing 707 was loaded
with weapons at Burgas airport on February 21, 1998. The
aircraft then departed for Kano, Nigeria, where it
made a stopover before delivering its cargo to Sierra Leone.
In January 1999, the London Sunday
Times also reported that Sky Air Cargo of London and the Ostend-based
Occidental Airlines,
owned by a Belgian arms dealer, Ronald Rossignol and
a British pilot, Brian
Martin (see further on), were using ageing Boeing planes that were
loaded with AK47 rifles and 60mm portable mortars at Bratislava, the Slovak capital.
Supposedly destined for Uganda, the arms, 40 tons at a time, went to Liberia
and the Gambia, where they were put on flights for a bush airstrip at Kenema in Sierra Leone, occasionally through the services
of Victor Bout
(see further on). Eventually the arms were flown to rebels in the eastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). [6]
In a
taped video interview, a British pilot described how in 1999 and 2000 he flew AK47
rifles from Rwanda and Uganda into the rebel-held town of Kisangani
in the DRC. He claimed the planes were registered in Swaziland for Planet Air,
which was named by the US government as supplying arms to eastern DRC.
According to Amnesty
International (AI), Planet Air has offices in West London run by the
same person who managed Sky Air Cargo, the company that had operated the
Liberian-registered cargo plane EL-JNS (now
3D-ALJ: *4) and, says AI, strangely enough, the Liberian
Civil Aviation Regulatory Authority was run by a UK business in Kent, England,
during 1999 and 2000. When too many questions were asked, the Kent businessman
switched to selling registrations for Equatorial Guinea. UN investigations have
shown that aircraft on these UK-run registers were used for international arms
trafficking to Angola, Sierra Leone and Central Africa, including the DRC. [7]
The
Pakistani owner of Sky Air, since 2001 in liquidation, seems to have strong
connections with a new Ostend-based company, Avicon Aviation,
founded in May 1998 by a Pakistani resident in Karachi. The man in charge of
the Ostend company is another Pakistani living in Ostend and during the mid 1990s Ostend
station manager for Sky Air. According to certain sources, ‘Avicon’
stands for Aviation Consultants, the Texas company of David
The above-mentioned Air Atlantic Cargo, owned by Nigerians, had Ostend and Lagos as operating bases. Its fleet was
restricted to two Nigerian-registered Boeing 707s, 5N-EEO (*5) and 5N-TNO (*6), which in 1997 made a combined total of 126
flights from
Air Atlantic Cargo was a British company with offices
in
Ten months after the Pointe Noire sighting, a cargo
plane was seen making drops to troops on both sides of the civil war in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. Interviews with former crew members revealed that
on 4 August 1998 one of Air Atlantic’s Boeings landed at Goma
in the east of the country with 38 tonnes of arms from Burgas
in Bulgaria. A week later the other aircraft was spotted in Namibia, delivering
21 tonnes of arms to President Laurent Kabila’s
troops. Crew members later confirmed to aid agency researchers that this was
the plane that had supplied troops fighting the DRC government. The plane then
flew to Botswana and unloaded armoured cars destined for Kabila’s
troops in Kinshasa. They were almost certainly part of a consignment of 36
reconditioned vehicles manufactured by the British company Alvis
of Coventry for the Belgian Army and sold to Botswana between 1995 and 1997. [8]
Ron
Brennan, a director of Air Atlantic Cargo, told that he did not ‘have a clue’
what cargo the Boeing 707s have been carrying in Africa, but he fiercely
rejected suggestions the company had been involved in arms trafficking. When
pressed, Brennan conceded that one of the planes had been chartered by a
Congolese airline. ‘What they use the planes for, is anybody’s guess,’ he said.
3.
Liberia World Airlines has its main office in Gibraltar. In 1988 a
Belgian company NV Liberia World Airlines Belgium was constituted, which
went bankrupt in 1994. The company was
co-owned by a Liberian citizen and a native of Kinshasa, Duane Andrew Egli.
The latter took residence in a hamlet on the Franco-Belgian border. A few weeks
after the bankruptcy, the Brussels-based company Westland Aviation, also owned by Mr Egli, was transferred to the Ostend
Airport. The company obtained a very substantial injection of new money, fifty
per cent of which was contributed by a Swiss company, Avtec AG, Basel.
Before he left the former Zaïre in 1988, Duane Egli owned an airline company, based in Kinshasa and called
Lukim Air Services.
Westland
Aviation was active in Ostend until January 2004. It
had two DC8 aircraft based on that airport. One of them had its last authorised
flight in Europe in January 2001 and it took the opportunity to fly to Uganda.
The other Liberian-registered aircraft EL-AJO (*7) was operational until December 2001, when it
took off for Sharjah (UAE) to be sold to Cargo Plus
Aviation. In 1995 it was accused by Human Rights Watch
of illegal arms transport. The Belgian authorities assured HRW that an
investigation was already in progress as a result of their own information. In
spite of the investigation, the same aircraft was, in August 1996, again
convicted of illicit transport. The aircraft was impounded by local authorities
in Goma, the Congo, after it was found to be carrying
military clothing destined for Uganda and hidden under a load of relief
supplies. [9]
Nevertheless
until at least 2000 a great number of humanitarian flights were assigned to the
same airplane EL-AJO. This means that Belgian authorities are not interested in
the reports of HRW or of similar pressure groups and consequently have omitted
taking preventive action. As a result, certain companies manage to make a
profit from acts of war, by mixing relief supplies with military equipment.
A
company closely connected with Westland Aviation, Airline Management Group, ran a
hangar where, besides LWA-aircraft, other old airplanes received maintenance or
were refurbished. Whether AMG owned a maintenance licence, is not clear.
However, the company went bankrupt in July 2003. Six months later, in January
2004 Westland Aviation went bankrupt as well.
Meanwhile,
Liberia World Airlines Gibraltar reappeared as Ducor World Airlines
and acquired in May 2001, with the contribution of Avtec
AG, a Lockheed TriStar from LTU Airways,
Bulgarian-re-registered as LZ-TPC. The aircraft, stored at Ostend
Airport, was converted to a freighter. At the end of 2001 DWA intended to
acquire an additional four aircraft to replace its fleet of two DC8 aircraft,
EL-AJO (now 3D/3C-FNK: *8)
and EL-AJQ (now 3C-QRG: *9). It was first intended to register all of these
aircraft in Bulgaria, as Liberian planes were then grounded due to United
Nations restrictions. However, LZ-TPC was again re-registered in Equatorial
Guinea as 3C-QQX. But due to licence difficulties, it had to remain parked at Ostend Airport for an unknown period of time. A further
registration number, N822DE (*10), was then assigned in March 2002, and rumour has
it that the aircraft was in a very advanced state of corrosion and would be
dismantled for spares. [10]
In
January 2002 Ducor World Airlines purchased the
additional four TriStar aircraft from JMC
Airlines/Caledonian Airways. One of them was re-registered as 3C-QRL, also in
Equatorial Guinea, a tiny African republic, where most of Victor Bout’s fleet
has been registered (see further on). The aircraft arrived early March at
Maastricht, in the Netherlands, and was
then ferried to Eindhoven initially to be operated as
a flying exhibition for the Dutch Philips electronic products, but it became
since 2003 again active with DWA from Sharjah. The
third aircraft, re-registered as 3C-QRQ, was at first flying from Maastricht
mainly to African destinations, has been involved in arms deliveries to Liberia
(see below) and is since October 2003 Liberia-registered A8-AAA. The two other TriStar planes were, after Ducor
went bankrupt in 2003, intended to become Liberia-registered too.
Belgian
authorities were asked for more scrutiny to the Lockheed, stored at Ostend Airport. Indeed, the story of the aircraft N822DE
(msn 1152) appears to be quite complicated [11].
Previously belonging to LTU Airways, it was since 1995 stored at Tucson,
Arizona (USA), and its owner was Avtec AG. From May
2001 it was stored at Ostend Airport, belonged to
Liberia World Airlines Gibraltar, and was first registered LZ-PTC, then
re-registered LZ-TPC. In August 2001, LWA was renamed Ducor
World Airlines and the aircraft got its Equatorial Guinea registration 3C-QQX.
In March 2002, the Lockheed was eventually bought by Duane Andrew Egli, director of LWA/DWA and Westland Aviation and since
2001 an American citizen living in Miami, and the aircraft got its final
American registration N822DE. [12]
After a period of 18 months without executing a single flight, the Lockheed
took off from Ostend Airport on 31 January 2003 bound
for Canada, but the aircraft had to make an emergency landing at Manston Airport in southern England, after two of the three
engines failed. In May 2003 the aircraft was ferried to an airport in Miami to
be broken up. (*11)
Investigation
by Bulgarian authorities showed that a company owned by a Bulgarian citizen, Yordan Zlatev, had applied for
the Lockheed’s Bulgarian LZ-registrations. Zlatev is
also a partner in Sitrat Air together with Volodya Nachev, who is a partner
of Victor and Sergey Bout in the Bulgarian private air carrier, Air Zory. [13]
UN-investigation
established that the Gibraltar company, KAS Engineering, through its branch in Sofia,
KAS Engineering Teximp Bulgaria, acts as the sole
broker of all the exports from Bulgaria-based arms suppliers. Victor Bout was
the main transporter of these arms towards Africa’s
war zones. He also provided the counterfeit end-user certificates to KAS
Engineering. With regard to the settlement of the arms transactions, funds have
been transferred to a Standard Chartered Bank account of the KAS Engineering
branch in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates), the home of
Victor Bout, before he fled to Moscow. [14]
All
this makes LWA/DWA suspected of being closely linked to international arms
dealer Victor Bout, who started his evil business in 1995 in Ostend. [13]
The involvement of DWA in arms traffic was
again evidenced, when end March 2003 Charles Taylor provided the UN with a list
of weapons that Liberia had procured for its self-defence from the Serbian arms
manufacturer Zastava. The broker for the arms deal
was Belgrade-based company Temex. Between May and the
end of August 2002 an Ilyushin of Moldova’s Aerocom and the Lockheed 3C-QRQ of Belgium’s Ducor
World illegally transported the weapons to Liberia. [15a, 15b]
After
Ducor’s bankruptcy in July 2003, confirmed by Ostend’s station manager,
Between March and September 2004, Duane Egli
was again involved in illegal arms traffic. An airplane of Rwandan-based
Silverback Cargo freighters, 9XR-SC (*15), was leased out to and
operated by his International Air Services to transport quantities of arms from
Eastern Europe to Rwanda. [55] Under international
pressure, Duane Egli ceased his aircraft activities,
but not for long. In 2007 he managed to create a new Chad-based company, AMW Tchad, also known as Aircraft
Machinery Works. His both Lockheeds A8-AAA and A8-AAB, meanwhile relegated to the EU
operating ban list, take again to the air, but now Chad-registered as TT-DAE (*16) and TT-DWE and thus as
yet avoiding to be subject to an EU-ban. Duane Egli
himself resumed his Belgian residence, near the city of Tournai.
4.
In December 1997 Air Charter Service
(ACS) set up a new company at Ostend Airport. ACS had
already offices in
Once
in an interview the British pilot Brian Martin let slip that he had in recent
years regularly airlifted AK47 assault rifles to Central Africa as well as
medical supplies for UNICEF. Brian Martin is known as the co-owner of
Occidental Airlines (see further on). Alerted by this interview, a British
pressure group started an investigation and identified the Boeing EL-ACP, being
used by the Ostend company Air Charter Service
Belgium for illicit arms transportation on the orders of a group of Dutch
brokers.
Flight
documents show that on November 3, 1999 the aircraft left Ostend
empty for Burgas in Bulgaria. It took off at 14.56
hours as flight number ACH252F. After a fuel stop at Aswan, Egypt and having
flown over Kenya under radio silence, it arrived the next day in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, carrying 40
tonnes of military equipment. According to Amnesty International, the airport commandant
at Ostend said he had interviewed the Belgian flight
engineer on the trip in question, who confirmed that the cargo included
anti-tank shoulder-fired weapons. Military experts believe the cargo included a
Bulgarian portable surface-to-air missile system. The 40 tonnes of equipment
were transferred to an Ilyushin freighter and flown
to Kinshasa.
For
its very last flight from Ostend in March 2000,
EL-ACP was again planning the delivery of weaponry to Harare, intended for the
Zimbabwean troops supporting Laurent Kabila against
rebel forces backed by Rwanda and Uganda. On March 15 at 13.52 hours the plane
took off under flight number ACH007 for Bratislava in Slovakia, where it had to collect
its items for delivery to Zimbabwe. [18]
On
June 5, 2001, Air Charter Service Belgium went bankrupt, but ACS activities
from Ostend Airport continued under the direct
management of ACS chairman, Christopher Dennis Leach. In May 2005 ACS finally
switched Ostend as its aircraft base for Nottingham’s
East Midlands airport.
Two
companies, mentioned below, which were actively involved in arms dealing,
disappeared from Ostend in 1997/98. However, the
owner of the first mentioned company is back in Belgium and recommencing
covertly his prior activities. The two companies are:
▪
Occidental Airlines
▪ Trans Aviation Network Group
1.
In August 1997 a
newspaper report indicated that Occidental Airlines, a company based at Ostend Airport was under investigation by the public
prosecutor of Bruges. [19]
Until 1998 Occidental Aviation Services NV, as the company was officially
registered at the Ostend Commercial Trade Register,
had its own large warehouse next to the airport control tower. Although it was
pretended that his wife was the owner of the company, a former Belgian airline
pilot, Ronald Rossignol, was in fact the owner, together with
the British pilot Brian
Martin.
Ronald
Rossignol is the son of a senior political appointee
in the office of P. Van den Boeynants, at the time
when the latter was serving as Belgium’s Minister of Defence. [20] Ronald Rossignol
had, prior to 1980, close connections with Brussels extreme right wing circles.
[19] Since 1980 he has
been involved in business with the Congo’s erstwhile President Mobutu.
According to the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, his name
appeared on Interpol lists and he was arrested in 1984 in France and accused of
fraudulent bankruptcy, to the extent of some BEF 800 million.
Despite
the dubious past of R. Rossignol, placed once more
under judicial scrutiny, a senior civil
servant of the Flemish authorities,
The
subject of the judicial investigation was a cargo of nearly forty tonnes of
military equipment, to be sent to governmental or rebel forces in Angola. An Avistar Airlines
Boeing 707 freighter, Cyprus-registered as 5B-DAZ (*18), was chartered for the trip by Occidental
Airlines. Pending a Belgian Customs investigation the consignment, consisting
of Dutch Army surplus items, had been impounded in Occidental’s warehouse for
nine months. The cargo manifest showed an innocuous cargo of used clothing,
vehicle parts and vehicles, but the cargo consisted of twenty tonnes of
uniforms, an armoured car, multi-band radios and other equipment needed by a
fighting force. After being impounded for nine months, the consignment was
granted permission to be exported to England and was merely sent across the
Channel by truck without arousing further interest.
On
12 May 1998 the Avistar aircraft took off from the
civil airport side of RAF Manston in Kent, UK bound
for Africa. The flight plan showed that the aircraft was bound for Kano in Nigeria to refuel and then to its reported final
destination of Mmabatho in South Africa. After taking
off from Kano, the aircraft temporarily disappeared.
It never landed on Mmabatho’s runway, actually too
short for a fully-laden Boeing 707, but it was observed around 04.00 hours on
13 May on the ground at Cabinda, Angola and
reappeared some hours later at Lomé in Togo, empty. [22]
According
to the UK newspaper The
Observer of 14 March 1999, the same aircraft 5B-DAZ, which in 1997
made some 28 flights from Ostend flew, in December
1998, a cargo of weapons and ammunition from Hermes, the former Slovak state-owned arms
manufacturer in Bratislava,
to the Sudan,
in breach of an EU embargo. The southern civilian population of the Sudan was then subjected to violent
oppression on religious grounds. The money paid by Hermes for the flight was
split between the pilot, the crew and Ronald Rossignol,
who acted as broker. While on its way for another delivery to the Sudan and
again chartered by Rossignol, the aircraft left
Bratislava on 7 February 1999, failed to achieve sufficient speed and ploughed
into the mud at the end of the runway. Because of its long list of ongoing
malfunctions, it was decided not to repair the aircraft.
In
January 1999, the London Sunday Times reported that Occidental
Airlines, together with the London-based Sky Air Cargo, was using ageing Boeing planes
to transport about 400 tons of military equipment, 40 tons at a time, from Bratislava to
Sierra Leone, from where the equipment was flown to rebel Congo airstrips,
especially Goma and Kisangani.
[6]
A
Romanian daily, Evenimentul Zilei,
reported in March 2002, that besides the Sky Air’s plane EL-JNS as already
noted, aircraft of a company cooperating with Victor Bout’s arms smuggling, Flying Dolphin, as well as the aircraft
chartered by the Belgian trafficker Ronald Rossignol
used the military section of Otopeni airport, near
Bucharest, as a touchdown base before leaving Romania, loaded with arms from
Romanian company, Romtehnica.
Ronald
Rossignol succeeded in his efforts to remain outside
the grip of Belgian justice, which probably had insufficient legal grounds to
take him into custody. The incapacity of local justice illustrates clearly the
need for comprehensive international legislation and law enforcement, as well
as underlining the ease with which arms brokers are able to take advantage of
gaps within and between national legal systems.
However,
since January 2001 Rossignol restarted his activities
as a manager of a new company, called Red Rock and based at Brussels South Airport, while Belgian Justice
again seemed to skip the opportunity of some action. Already a few months later
Rossignol and his company were involved in illegal
drugs traffic from Jamaica (see further on). Rossignol
then took during a few years residence in Sandton,
South-Africa, but he resumed his manager position, when Red Rock moved in
December 2006 to an industrial area, next to the same Brussels South Airport.
2.
Another Ostend-based company, which until 1997 was involved in arms
smuggling, was NV
Trans Aviation Network Group (hereafter “TAN Group”). The company
was founded in 1995 and had its main office lodged in a brand-new building,
called Jet Center, at the end of the motorway from
Brussels to Ostend. The parent company of TAN Group, Air Cess is
based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and seems
to perform a pivotal function amongst different aircraft companies trafficking
in arms. The brain of the organisation is a Russian ex-KGB major, Victor Anatolevic Bout (previously
referred to), native of Tajikistan and undoubtedly
on excellent terms with Russian and Ukrainian mafia and with former
KGB-colleagues. As already noted, Victor Bout bought himself a luxurious house
in a residential quarter of Ostend. His Belgian
partner was a pilot, Ronald
Desmet, formerly resident in France near the Swiss border.
Involvement
in arms smuggling was first evidenced, when an insider revealed that Ronald Desmet paid the Air Cess-pilots USD10,000, in addition to
their usual salaries, for each flight carrying arms and munitions. These
flights were at that time mostly intended for Afghanistan. When this became
known in Ostend and leaflets [23] with the names of those involved in illegal
operations began appearing in mail boxes, Bout and his company Air Cess
disappeared from Belgium, according to the director of IPIS and UN expert on
illegal arms trade,
Ronald
Desmet had formerly flown for the Saudi royal family [25] and held the authority to conduct
business in the United Kingdom on behalf of the Liberian Aircraft Register. [26]
Using these facts as proof of his integrity, he succeeded even in becoming a
member of the Ostend Rotary club.
After
he left Ostend, Victor Bout just went on with his
sanctions-busting activities. According to a 1999 report of HRW, he had founded
a subsidiary of Air Cess/Air Bas based at the South African airport of Pietersburg, called Air Pass. From Pietersburg,
Air Pass, against UN regulations, transported fuel tanks, towing trucks, food
and mining equipment to Unita-held areas of Angola. [27]
During its activities, Air Pass had a direct link with a South African
agency, Norse Air Charter, a subsidiary of the British air charter company Air Foyle
of Luton. According to The Guardian (5 August 2000), it appears that Air Foyle
had, through Norse Air Charter, a two-year business partnership with Victor
Bout. [28]
Between
July 1997 and October 1998, 37 flights left Burgas
in Bulgaria carrying weapons worth $ 14 million and ending up in the hands of Unita forces in Angola, according to a UN-report of 21
December 2000. Victor Bout provided forged end-user certificates to the
Gibraltar-based company KAS Engineering (previously referred to), which
contracted the arms shipments from Bulgarian suppliers.
Shortly
after South African authorities suspected him of smuggling arms to the Unita rebel forces, Victor Bout moved his operations to
another company Air
Cess Swaziland at Manzini airport. After
the Swazi authorities discovered that his company was transporting military
equipment, Victor Bout decided to move completely from southern Africa and to
make Bangui in the Central African Republic his new African stronghold. [27]
On
19 April 2000 an Antonov aircraft AN-8, registered
TL-ACM in the Central African Republic, crashed at an airport of the Democratic
Republic of Congo, shortly after takeoff. There were no survivors. It was on a
return flight with Rwandan army officers and some soldiers on board. The plane
appeared to belong to Centrafrican Airlines, based at Bangui and to
be co-owned by Ronald
Desmet, the Belgian partner of Victor
Bout. [14] Elsewhere an
un-named company of Victor Bout has been reported flying in 1999 between the
Central African Republic, Kisangani, the Congo and
Kigali, Rwanda carrying arms, timber and precious stones. There is indeed also
another company in Kigali, called Air Cess Rwanda, working with Russian and
Ukrainian crew members and focussing its arms trade on the eastern region of
the Congo and Angola. [29]
According
to The Guardian, Victor Bout, who repeatedly changes the spelling of his name,
is thought to operate a cargo fleet of some 20 ex-Soviet aircraft through
several associated cargo companies based in various countries. It is almost
impossible to trace all the aircraft linked with Victor Bout and his
activities, since it is known that he usually leases his freighter aircraft to
other operators and so can claim ignorance of
the business of sanctions-busting. However, two of Air Foyle’s Antonov 124s made several flights to and from Ostend during the two-year partnership of the British
company with Victor Bout. In January 1999, a plane belonging to Victor Bout was
flown in conjunction with aircraft of Sky Air and the partly Belgian-owned Occidental Airlines,
to airlift arms from Bratislava
to war-torn but diamond rich Sierra Leone. [6] Four of Bout’s Ilyushin
aircraft are registered in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny African republic squeezed
between Gabon and Cameroon and with Malabo as a capital, located on the islet Bioko. [30]
Two of them were recorded in October 1999 at Ostend
Airport’s official flight log, making flights to the United Arab Emirates. On a
few occasions Victor Bout called upon the services of a company, known as
Phoenix Aviation and owned by an Israeli of Russian origin. Two Phoenix Ilyushins were observed in August 1999 in Ostend and the last flight of one of them from Ostend was recorded in the official flight log on 29
January 2000 towards Khartoum
in the Sudan.
According
to the UN-report of December 2000, Victor Bout “oversees a complex network of
over 50 planes, tens of airline companies, cargo charter companies and
freight-forwarding companies, many of which are involved in shipping illicit
cargo”. [31]
(Quick
jump to Victor Bout’s air cargo companies!)
Challenged
in 1997 to take legal action and to prevent the use of Belgian airports by
Victor Bout’s companies and other companies suspected or convicted of arms
trafficking, Belgian authorities retorted that such companies were not subject
to the existing Belgian jurisdiction and thus admitted that this legal
inadequacy indeed enables abusers to take advantage of the gaps within and
between the different national legal systems. The result of the investigation,
ultimately ordered by the Ministry of External Affairs, has never been
published.
After
Victor Bout swapped his action field in southern Africa for a safer one in
central Africa, he was actively assisted by Sanjivan Ruprah,
a politically well-connected Kenyan businessman of Indian extraction. Ruprah introduced Victor Bout in arms dealings with
Liberia’s president Charles Taylor and with rebels in eastern Congo as well as
in Sierra Leone. After his relationship with Charles Taylor started to
deteriorate, Ruprah moved to Belgium in mid-2001 and
was arrested in Brussels on 5 February 2002.
Victor
Bout did better. Until allegations in the US media surfaced
about links with Al Qaeda, Bout operated with impunity in Western democracies,
former Eastern Bloc nations, and the developing world, through a maze of
companies, exploiting lax and outdated regulations and changing his aircraft
registrations from one country to another. Although for a long time the US
authorities had turned a blind eye to his activities, Victor Bout suddenly
became a main target of the US and the Western alliance, after the 11 September
catastrophe and the subsequent assumption of his purported connections with Al
Qaeda, until now not supported by any conclusive evidence.
Victor
Bout had then to take refuge in Moscow, where he adamantly declared in the
studios of radio Ekho Moskvy:
‘I deal exclusively with air transportation.’
However,
Victor Bout’s alleged previous link with Al Qaeda doesn’t mean, in the view of
US officials, that the US and UK governments shouldn’t cooperate with him.
Indeed the US-UK coalition forces are using airlines owned by Victor Bout to
transport supplies to Iraq. In 2003 a subsidiary of the British Gulf International Airlines (BGIA), headquartered in Sao Tome & Principe and with
base in Sharjah, was created in Kyrgyzstan, and uses
name, offices and staff of its Sao Tome counterpart. Intelligence agencies have
linked Bout to this firm’s planes, and money transfers have been traced between
BGIA and a Bout-linked company, San Air General Trading.
BGIA’s flight manager admitted that his firm
frequently flew supplies to several Iraqi locations. Also Bout’s Kazakhstan air
company, Irbis Air, which took over
assets and operations from Bout’s Air Cess/Air Bas, frequently flew into Iraq. Irbis planes bought fuel 142 times from military stocks in
Baghdad. [32]
Since Iraq airports are now the world's most dangerous, Bout's
aircraft, pilots and personnel provide the US authorities with "plausible
deniability" in case an airplane is downed. It is believed that Bout will
be amnestied from the multitude of international charges he faces in return for
his services. Indeed, in 2004 the Bush administration began to press for Bout
to be left off planned UN sanctions, in spite of French efforts to freeze his
assets and an outstanding Interpol warrant for his arrest. [33]
When Condoleezza Rice was National Security Adviser, she pre-empted an attempt
by
To
whatever degree
▪
According to the UK’s Daily Express of 9 June 1996, in April 1996
the British pilot Christopher
Barrett-Jolley bought a small BAC 1-11
freighter that was due to be scrapped, and persuaded the British authorities to
allow him to fly it to Ostend, supposedly to sell the
parts. Once there, however, he put the plane on the Liberian register and
formed a new company, Balkh Air, to fly arms from Bulgaria to a warlord in
northern Afghanistan. Barrett-Jolley was also the
pilot, who should have flown the arms-laden Boeing 707, 5B-DAZ, chartered by Ronald Rossignol’s Occidental Airlines, from Bratislava to Khartoum in the Sudan on 7 February
1999. Ironically, he could then not be present to fly the plane. So an
unlicensed crew boarded the freighter, but unaware of its defects they failed
to get the plane into the air and, as recounted earlier, it crashed into the
mud at the runway’s end. Another old Boeing 707 with Afghan registration YA-GAF (*19a) has been standing since 1997 on Ostend Airport in a state of increasing dilapidation and
was ultimately broken up end of June 2004 (*19b). First owned by Uganda Airlines, it was
afterwards owned by Balkh Air, the company of the
enigmatic British pilot and moreover linked to one of the most cruel warlords
in Afghanistan, Rashid Dostum.
Barrett-Jolley’s
unlawful behaviour is further illustrated by his due appearance in court on 19
October 2001. A few days earlier, after a Boeing 707 freighter (msn 19179),
registered in Equatorial Guinea as 3C-GIG (*20), arrived at
night from Jamaica at Southend Airport, Essex, UK,
pilot Barrett-Jolley was caught red-handed and
charged with smuggling 270 kilos of cocaine with an estimated street value of
£22 million. [36]
The plane had been chartered by Ronald Rossignol’s new
Belgian company Red
Rock, based at Brussels South Airport and
which he manages since its establishment in 2001. The plane, now registered as
9L-LDU (*21), was sold in October
2003 to and active until its crash in Istanbul (23 December 2005) with Air Leone, formerly Ibis Air Transport and controlled by Executive Outcomes and its sister company Sandline International. [37]
In
1994 Barrett-Jolley flew arms to the Unita rebels in Angola and to South Yemen during the
vicious civil war. In December 1994, one of his planes crashed outside Coventry
airport, due to outdated equipment and improper maintenance, killing five
people.
▪ In 1997 an ageing Boeing 707, registered as
5Y-SIM (*22), made 39 flights from
▪ In May 1997 a Boeing 707 of Ibis Air
Transport, alias Air Leone, alias Capricorn Flights, and registered as P4-JCC (*23) visited twice Ostend
Airport. It was also seen at Sharjah in February
1998. Before that, it had visited Ostend registered
as YR-JCC and operated by the Romania-based company, Jaro
International. The aircraft was later sold to the Sudan-based Azza Transport Company.
▪ Before Victor Bout
started his business in Ostend, the airport of this
town was, according to Human Rights Watch, already since at least 1994 harbouring
aircraft connected with arms deliveries to embargoed African countries. In its
report on the April 1994 Rwandan genocide [39], HRW
reported that an arms shipment arrived in mid-June 1994 in Goma
on an aircraft registered in Liberia, with a Belgian crew from Ostend, which picked up arms in Libya, including artillery,
ammunition and riffles from old government stocks. This arms shipment was
probably the one to which the leaflets [22] distributed
in Ostend mail boxes alluded, bringing this
Liberian-registered aircraft into connection with Bout’s associate, Ronald Desmet, who had boasted in the presence of a local Ostend politician, that he held the authority to conduct
business on behalf of the Liberian Aircraft Register. [25] However, these weapons were then to be
delivered from Goma in what was then known as Zaire
to the Rwandan Hutu armed forces at Gisenyi, just
across the Rwandan border.
An
earlier flight with arms took place on 25 May. A Boeing 707 aircraft,
Nigerian-registered as 5N-OCL (*24), arrived at Goma
carrying 39 tons of arms and ammunition. [40] The
aircraft was said to have carried a single passenger, listed as “Bagosera T.”. It is also known that Colonel Théoneste Bagosora,
a top official from the former Rwandan government forces and reputed to be one
of the main organizers of the April 1994 genocide, was at that time eagerly in
search of weapons to counter the Tutsi RPF armed forces. [39] The
5N-OCL Boeing was operated by Overnight Cargo
In
December 2008 Bagosora was sentenced for life in
prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for
▪ In its
▪ On 17 November 2000, a 33 years old Boeing
707, owned by Equaflight Service, an airline company
with operating base at Pointe Noire, Congo-Brazzaville, landed at Ostend Airport. It was registered as TN-AGO (*27). Before that, it was operated by Air Ghana and
registered as 9G-AYO. Just before becoming TN-AGO, the plane was temporarily
Thai-registered as HS-TFS, astonishingly the same registration number which was
seen on another aircraft in September 1999 (see further on). The previous ‘Thai
Flying Services’ titles were still slightly visible on this new-registered
aircraft. However, in 1997 the same aircraft, registered as EL-RDS, made 6 of
the 12 flights executed in that year from Ostend
Airport by airplanes of Air Cess, one of Victor Bout’s main airline
companies. Four of the 12 flights were executed by the Air Cess Ilyushin EL-RDX, which became afterwards registered as
TL-ACU and operated by Bout’s Centrafrican Airlines and whose deliveries of
helicopters, other military equipment and ammunition in July and August 2000 to
Liberia are well documented. [42]
On 4 January 2001, TN-AGO took off from Ostend for Chateauroux in France. On 7 September 2001, the airplane
crashed at Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo and sustained substantial damage when the undercarriage collapsed and two
engines detached.
▪ Another aircraft seen at Ostend Airport, has been involved in illegal arms traffic.
On 29 September 2001 an Antonov-12, registered as UR-UCK and owned by Ukrainian
Cargo Airways, landed at the Bratislava airport. The aircraft was expected to
pick up for onward shipment to Angola additional cargo, that just before had
been unloaded from an Iranian Ilyushin plane. This
Iranian cargo appeared to be 504 units of rocket-propelled grenades, but it did
not match the consignment-note. Consequently the munitions cargo was impounded
and so prevented from being loaded onto the Antonov-12, which was allowed to
take off for a military airport in Israel en route to Angola, after Slovak
authorities had been pressurized to release the consignment. UR-UCK’s own cargo, collected on departure from Ukraine on
behalf of the Israeli private military company LR Avionics Technologies,
consisted of spare parts for military aircraft. During a fuel-stop at Mwanza in Tanzania [43],
the aircraft was halted, since authorities discovered undeclared weapons cargo.
Nevertheless, it was allowed to leave on orders of top Tanzanian security
officials.[44] LR
Avionics is known to belong to former military pilots and to have sold under
controversial circumstances Ukrainian radar systems for military and civil use
in Angola, Congo and Ethiopia. [45]
The aircraft UR-UCK also visited Ostend from 2000 to 2002 and was in the second half of 2002
leased in by the Ostend-based company Air Charter
Service (*28).
As recounted earlier, Moldovan Aerocom was, together with Belgium’s Ducor
World Airlines, convicted of illegal arms transport to Liberia in the summer of
2002 [15b].
After its gunrunning was the subject of too much public exposure, Aerocom got its air transport operating certificate revoked
in August 2004. [58] Asterias Commercial, a
company in
One of Asterias’
airplanes was frequently seen at
▪
On 31 December 2002 an airplane, registered in the Central African
Republic (CAR) as TL-ADJ (*30), requested to make an emergency landing at Ostend Airport, since the landing gears didn’t come in
after take-off in Southend. In 1997 this plane,
registered as 9Q-CBW (*31), was a regular visitor to Ostend
Airport and executed 106 flights from Ostend on
behalf of Scibe Airlift Congo. This company closed
down and the plane was then stored at Southend
airport. After 5 years of storage, the plane was supposed to leave on 13
December 2002 for Tripoli, Libya, but due to technical problems the aircraft
was kept on the ground. It left then Southend on 31
December bound for Mitiga, Libya, but within 30
minutes it landed at Ostend. On 3 January 2003 the
aircraft was supposed to leave Ostend for Mitiga, but again it was kept on the ground. Technical
control, ordered by the Belgian authorities, showed a long list of
deficiencies. The logo on the plane’s tail ‘AL’ stands for African Lines,
a company which is probably linked to Centrafrican
Airlines of the Belgian pilot Ronald Desmet, former
associate of notorious arms dealer Victor Bout. According to UN-reports, Centrafrican Airlines is known for having airlifted arms
from Bangui in the CAR to several war zones in Africa, mainly those in the DRC.
According to the Belgian daily De Morgen of 24
January 2003, it also appeared that Jean-Pierre Bemba,
the leader of the rebel movement MLC (Mouvement de Libération du Congo) was
immediately lobbying to get the aircraft in the air and it was known that Bemba, still fighting then for primacy in the northern part
of the DRC, got arms and ammunition airlifted from the CAR. Eventually under
ongoing pressure of Bemba, who meanwhile became one
of the six vice-presidents of the transitional government of the DRC, and after
a French company willingly delivered a valid “release to service” certificate,
the aircraft took off from Ostend on 6 August 2003
and minutes later ended up at the airport of Reims in
France, after again an emergency landing.
The
defunct airline company Scibe Airlift was owned by Jean-Pierre Bemba’s father Bemba Saolana,
a wealthy businessman in the then Zaire under Mobutu. The company kept offices
at Ostend Airport, called Scibe
CMMJ. Bemba Saolana and one
of Mobutu’s sons controlled in addition to Scibe,
several smaller airline companies, that formed the vital lifeline that enabled Unita to re-emerge as a highly capable rebel movement in
Angola in the mid 1990s. Scibe Airlift had one of its
planes grounded when it refused a customs check after arriving at N’Djili airport in Kinshasa from Belgium in early 1997. [46]
▪ An ageing Ghana-registered Boeing 707
(9G-EBK) made about ten flights with arms from Plovdiv
in Bulgaria to South
Yemen. This was at a time when that country was subject to an international
arms embargo. The aircraft was operated by the Ghana-based company, Imperial
Cargo Airlines, and was seen with this registration at Ostend
Airport. In 1997 the same aircraft, registered as 9G-SGF, made 40 flights from Ostend Airport and was then operated by the Nigerian-based
Sky Power Express Airways and leased from Ghana’s Al-Waha
Aviation, owner of this sole airplane. With the Thai registration number HS-TFS
(*32), already seen before on another plane, as
pointed out earlier, the aircraft reappeared at Ostend
Airport in September 1999 with titles of the operating company, Thai Flying
Services. It took off from Ostend for Sharjah,
which reportedly became its new home base. Afterwards the plane with a new
registration (9G-JET) was sold to Johnsons Air of
Ghana, which has Accra and Sharjah as operating bases
and is closely associated with a Belgian company First International Airlines.
▪
On 18 November 2000, the day after the Equaflight
Boeing TN-AGO landed in Ostend, a 35 years old Boeing
707 (9G-LAD) owned by Ghana’s Johnsons Air, landed at
Ostend Airport. In 1997 this plane was operated by a
Nigerian company, Merchant Express Aviation, based in Lagos, and registered as
5N-MXX (*33), it made 83 flights from Ostend
Airport. In 1998 Merchant Express ceased all activities and the aircraft became
Johnsons Air 9G-LAD (*34). Johnsons Air works in
league with the Belgian company, First International Airlines. The company, first based near the town of Tournai, is now based in Brussels. It has office and PO box at the Ostend
Airport and uses the air transport operating certificate of Ghana’s Johnsons Air. The man in charge of First International is
an Iranian, Niknafs Javad. He was a
pilot who, earlier in his career, flew for David Tokoph’s
Seagreen. It is not clear if his company still works
as a subcontractor for Tokoph. Rumours that First International
Airlines is flying arms between Azerbaijan and China have not been confirmed.
Another Johnsons Air Boeing 707 (P4-OOO) operated by
First International and seen at Ostend Airport, crashed
on 16 January 1997 on Kananga airport in the former
Zaire. As the right main gear collapsed on landing, the aircraft ran off the
side of the runway and caught fire.
First
International is also related to an obscure airline company, Cargo Plus Aviation, first registered in Equatorial Guinea afterwards in Ghana
and with bases in Dubai and Sharjah. The First
International office at the airport bears the nameplate with corresponding logo
of Cargo Plus, and both companies share their commodities. Meanwhile they left
their office at the airport for another office in town.
▪ At
Ostend Airport, Johnsons Air itself shares since the end of 2003 office, station
manager and PO box with HeavyLift, which is part of Christopher Foyle’s airline company Air
Foyle, as recounted earlier, known from its two-year business partnership with
arms dealer Victor Bout. [27]
HeavyLift seems to be the air broker, who organises
from Ostend the Johnsons Air
flights. However, both companies recently left the Ostend
airport after a few adverse publications.
Johnsons Air was formed in 1995 by Farhad Azima, a native of Iran,
resident in the U.S. since the 1950s and member of the Board of Directors of
the U.S. Azerbajan Chamber of Commerce [47]. At the
time of HeavyLift’s shutdown, Azima
was its chairman. Reputed as a mayor gunrunner [48],
he is also suspected to have had close ties to the CIA and has been linked to
the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal as well as to all kinds of criminal
activities [49].
On 7 August 2003 an ageing Boeing 707 landed at Robertsfield
International Airport in war-torn Liberia. It was filled with arms including
rocket launchers, automatic weapons and ammunition. [50] The Boeing was owned by Johnsons
Air. It was bearing the same registration number as the just above described
aircraft, 9G-LAD and was probably operating from Sharjah.
In fact it was executing this flight in a series of three Johnsons
arms flights to Monrovia. [51] But it is not quite clear which airline
company was operating the plane at the time when it landed in
Also Race Cargo Airlines has for years an office
at Ostend Airport and even a full-owned warehouse.
The Belgian company, officially registered at the Ostend
Commercial Trade Register, has a Ghanaian counterpart in Accra, while the UK
branch has been liquidated. Since May 2002 the Belgian Race Cargo was closely
associated with the Egyptian Air Memphis, until early April 2004, when Air
Memphis aircraft SU-AVZ (*14), a well-known visitor
to Ostend, was badly damaged. Afterwards, the Belgian
Race Cargo was used as aircraft handling company by Ghana-registered MK
Airlines, which switched in 2004 its base at Manston
Airport for Ostend. Eventually also the Belgian Race
went bankrupt in June 2006. At that time Race Cargo Ghana had already become a
dormant company, however having handed over its flight certificate to
Ghana-registered Cargo Plus Aviation.
Almost at the same time when the arms flight at Robertsfield Airport was notified, the Ghana Civil Aviation
Authority suspended the licence of the aircraft 9G-LAD as well as the air
transport operating certificate of Race Cargo, suspecting the Ghanaian company
of being the owner of the aircraft and attempting to deliver the arms
consignment to the Liberian government. [52] Apparently, Race Cargo was back in
the air for a short time, leasing Johnsons Air B707,
9G-IRL (*37), until the plane
crashed in Entebbe on 19 March 2005, then operating for Ethiopian Airlines,
another long-time visitor to Ostend.
However, two weeks earlier than the first Johnsons arms flight, on
It
seems that at least Johnsons, First International,
Race Cargo and HeavyLift intended since 2003 to work
in league from Ostend Airport. Therefore, Johnsons Air bought two old DC8 planes from Silk Way
Airlines of Azerbaijan, which used Ostend Airport as
the home base for both planes (*38, *39). First International bought another ageing DC8
from liquidated Aer Turas
of
From
February to August 2003, Al-Dawood, founded in 2002,
had another DC8, Congo-registered as 9Q-CAD (*41), operating from Ostend
and using the meanwhile defunct ICAO airline code “CAX” of a Swiss company, Capax-Air-Unitreva, which is said to be part of the
financial Bin Laden ramifications. [53]
▪
The linkage of Ostend Airport with arms trafficking
companies seems to be a never ending story. According to the London Sunday
Times of July 3 [54]
and an Amnesty International report of July 5, 2005 [55],
African
International Airways made a total of six
flights from Albania to the Rwandan capital of Kigali in late 2002 and early
2003 in breach of UN sanctions, carrying more than 250 tons of arms in DC8 freighter
aircraft. The arms cargo, consisting of machinegun and pistol ammunition,
grenades and rocket launchers, ended up in the hands of Rwandan-backed rebel
groups based in the conflict-ridden eastern Congo province of Ituri and found guilty of widespread torture, rape and
murder. African Int’l Airways is since many years a very regular visitor to the
Ostend Airport. So were also both
Swaziland-registered AIA DC8 planes (*42,
*43), responsible for the
arms flights and one South African-registered AIA DC8 (*44), reportedly exported
to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and so are two still regularly visiting
South African-registered AIA DC8 planes (*45,
*46). Organizer of the arms
transport was a UK charter broker, Platinum Air Cargo,
which had also an Ostend-registered branch with seat
adjacent to the airport.
On
18 October 2004 a 35 year old DC8 landed at Ostend
Airport and stayed for some ten weeks for maintenance and refurbishing.
Registered as 9XR-SC (*47), the aircraft is owned by the Rwandan-based
company, Silverback
Cargo Freighters, founded in 2002.
According to the Amnesty report of July 5, 2005 [55], both DC8 aircraft of Silverback, 9XR-SC and 9XR-SD
carried out another series of ammunition deliveries from Albania to Kigali from
April to June 2003. Between March and September 2004 the Silverback-plane
9XR-SC was leased out to International Air Services to transport further quantities of arms from Eastern
Europe to Rwanda. As recounted earlier, the latter Liberia-registered company
is the last but one creation of arms dealer Duane Egli.
It took over both remaining Lockheed TriStars from Egli’s in 2003 bankrupt Ducor
World Airlines, which in mid 2002 supplied weapons to Charles Taylor’s Liberia.
In
an interview in the French newspaper L’Humanité of
April 5, 2005 [56],
Hubert Sauper, film director of an award-winning
documentary film “Darwin’s Nightmare”, mentions this Ducor
airlift of military supplies to Burundi through the Mwanza
airport. The film is a tale about the devastating fish industry around the Lake
Victoria and about arms fish trade. It is distinctive that freighters seen in
“Darwin’s Nightmare” [57] are those,
well-known as long-time visitors to the Ostend
airport: SU-AVZ (*48) of Air Memphis and ZS-OSI (*49) of African International Airways, both
wet-leased by Egli’s International Air Services, ER-IBV
(*50) of Moldovan Jet Line International, linked to
Victor Bout, OD-AGP (*51) of TMA of Lebanon, 9G-MKG (*52) and 9G-MKK (*53) of MK Airlines, which
switched in 2004 its base at Manston airport for a
reportedly cheaper Ostend Airport.
MK Airlines operates mainly on African destinations, regularly on behalf
of Congo’s Hewa Bora
Airways and of Togo’s Africa West Air, the latter company having organised in
June 2003 flights with weapons and ammunition destined for the Mayi-Mayi rebels in South Kivu,
DRC [55]. Especially in support of newcomer MK, the
government of the Flemish Region started building a brand-new warehouse,
operational since 2006.
In its report of
Ostend Airport seems unable or
supposedly unwilling to finish with arms transport connected companies nor has
efficient action to clean up the mess been undertaken by Belgian authorities,
so that one could suspect some complicity of Belgian politics in sustaining
arms traffic organizers at the airport. This is further evidenced by the
continuing presence of dodgy companies, reportedly removed from the airport but
still established on other locations in Ostend and
consequently hardly believed to be inactive: Aero Zambia, Avicon
Aviation, First International, Cargo Plus Aviation and Linhas
Aéreas de Angola.
In a report of 1998, HRW states: “Crossing borders with extreme ease,
the arms traffickers have truly multinational networks and pipelines. The Ostend operators, for example, reside in Belgium, collect
their cargo from eastern European suppliers and deliver to clients across the
world”.
Bulgaria
and Slovakia are major sources of arms to be transported to war zones. Airports
from where the arms transfer is organised or effected are mainly Burgas
and Plovdiv in Bulgaria, Bratislava in Slovakia, a number of Russian
airports, Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and
the airport of Ostend. The arms are subsequently delivered to the Sudanese
airport of Khartoum,
the Tanzanian airport of Mwanza, to Sierra Leone, Angola, the Congo
or other war zones.
Picture
(*54) taken in 1996 at the Ostend airport illustrates well the Ostend
involvement in arms dealing. Five out of the six Boeings shown have been
involved in arms traffic: 5N-TNO of Air Atlantic Cargo, 5B-DAZ of Avistar, EL-JNS of Sky Air Cargo, 9G-ADS and (hidden behind
9G-ADS) EL-AKJ both of Occidental Airlines.
The complexity of arms trafficking networks is intended to make
transactions untraceable. However, it is difficult to agree when this
complexity and the lack of concordant European arms trade legislation are used
to justify abusive practices at Ostend Airport. In
addition, it is generally known that Ostend Airport
is economically not viable. This also has caused some people to suggest, that
involvement in the arms trade, and the concurrent financial support of
evil-minded organisations and even the acceptance of bribes by officials are
tolerated to ensure the survival of a heavily subsidised body.
Whatever
blame can be adduced to the Belgian authorities, some burgeoning of a serious
political will is expected to be seen in order to create an appropriate legal
framework and to obtain its approval by the other members of the European
Community, so as to put an end to this unacceptable trafficking in arms.
Association for
a Clean Ostend
[1] IPIS
[2] IPIS brochure 123, page 43
[2b] UN-report 12 December 2008
[2c] Lusaka Times, 4 May 2007
[3] International Herald Tribune, 2 February 1987
[4] Belgian newspaper Het
Belang van Limburg, 30 November 1996
[5] IPIS brochure 114, page 56
[6] London Sunday Times, 10 January 1999
[7] Britons involved in Africa gun-running
[8] UK newspaper The Observer, 31 January 1999
[9] Stoking fires with arms in Burundi
[10] Lockheed L1011 Information, News 2002
[11] History N822DE
[12] Lockheed L1011 Information, Production List
[13] Bulgaria once again among ‘The Usual
suspects’ in Arms Deals
[14] UN-reports 21 December 2000 & 9 April
2002
[15a]
Belgrade arms to Liberia in violation of U.N. sanctions
[15b]
Serbian Gunrunners in Africa
[16] ACS, Moscow
[17] ACS, UK
[18] UK newspaper The Guardian, 15 April 2000
[19] Belgian newspaper Het
Belang van Limburg, 16 August 1997
[20] IPIS brochure 123, page 45
[21] Belgian newspaper Het
Nieuwsblad, 21 August 1997
[22] Fax memorandum, July 1998, British source
[23] Leaflet
distributed in Ostend mail boxes
[24] Belgian Police Get on the Trail of “the Quiet
Russian”
[25] La Lettre du Continent N° 334, 29 July 1999
[26] UN-report S/2000/1225 of 21 December 2000,
paragraph 142
[27] Angola Unravels, IX Arms Trade and Embargo
Violations, South-Africa
[28] UK newspaper The Guardian, 20 August 2000
[29] The Arms Fixers, Chapter 5, Ex-Soviet
Business Steps In
[30] JP Airline Fleets International, 1999-2000
[31] UN-report December 2000, pages 38-39
[32]
[33] From international outlaw to valued partner,
21 October 2004
[34] Wayne Madsen Report, 11 December 2005
[35] Article Washington Post, 23 September 2007
[36] Article ic
Birmingham, 6 December 2002
[37] The Arms Fixers, Chapter 7, The Mercenary
Routes
[38] UN-report S/2000/1195 of 20 December 2000
[39] Rearming with Impunity, Human Rights Watch
report, May 1995
[40] UN-report S/1997/1010 of 24 December 1997
[40a]
BBC News, 18 December 2008
[41] Bulgaria: Arms Dealing with Human Rights
Abusers, HRW-report, April 1999
[42] HRW-report on
Slovakia’s Arms Trade, Case Study 1, February 2004
[43] Article The East African, 24 June 2002
[44] HRW-report on Slovakia’s Arms Trade, Case
Study 2, February 2004
[45] Forum Ukraine, 24 April 2002
[46] The logistics of sanctions busting: the
airborne component
[47] Website United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of
Commerce
[48] The Conservative Newsletter, 10 February 2001
[49] Organized Crime, the CIA and the Savings and
Loan Scandal
[50] Article ClariNews,
7 August 2003
[51] UN-report S/2004/396 of 1 June 2004, pages
17-22 & 52-53
[52] Ghana News Space FM, 8 August 2003
[53] Naming names: The Bin Laden Galaxy
[54] London Sunday Times, 3 July 2005
[55] Democratic Republic of Congo: arming the
east, Amnesty International report, 5 July 2005
[56] Interview with H. Sauper,
L’Humanité, 5 April 2005
[57] Documentary film ‘Darwins
Nightmare’
[58] Dead on time, Amnesty International report,
10 May 2006
[59] Aeronord-Group, Wiloo-report, 5 March 2007
Likely
to be consulted:
www.guardian.co.uk/sierra/article/0,2763,350783,00.html
www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,415125,00.html
www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4357318,00.html
www.ft.com/diamonds/monday5.htm
www.public-i.org/story_01_013002.htm
www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/angola/0012rprt.htm#IX
(paragraphs 123-143)
www.slovakspectator.sk/clanok.asp?vyd=2002007&cl=5665
www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/icij_bow.asp?Section=Chapter&ChapNum=11
Operators on Ostend Airport/situation September 2007 (in Dutch)
According to The Guardian, Victor Bout
is thought to operate a cargo fleet of some 20 ex-Soviet aircraft through
several associated cargo companies. This seems to be an underestimation, as
evidenced hereafter.
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[ ¨] |
Victor Bout’s Fleet |
[ ¨] |
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Origin |
AirCess |
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AirPass |
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AirCess |
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Centrafrican |
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Liberia |
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Swaziland |
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Equ.Guinea |
Airlines |
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Operating Base |
Sharjah, UAE |
Pietersburg, SA |
Sharjah, UAE |
Ras-al-Khaimah, UAE |
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Ilyushin 76T |
RA-86715 |
EL-RDT |
became |
3D-RTT |
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became |
TL-ACN derelict Umm Alquwain |
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Ilyushin 76M |
RA-86604 |
EL-RDX (*) “ |
3D-RTX (*55) |
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(*56) TL-ACU
to 3C-QRA (¨Air Bas) |
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Private user,
Russia |
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Became
UN-76497 (GST Aero Aircompany, Kazakhstan) |
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Ilyushin 76T |
RA-86846 |
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3D-RTA
(*)(*57) |
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became |
TL-ACY |
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Veteran AL, Russia |
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Became UN-76007 (GST Aero Aircompany, Kazakhstan) |
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Ilyushin 76T |
RA-76506 |
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“ |
TL-ACH to 3C-QRB (¨Air Bas) |
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Tyumen AL, Russia |
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(Fate unknown) |
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Ilyushin 76MD |
UR-76656 |
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3C-JJJ |
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TL-ADH (Fate unknown) |
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Ilyushin 62M |
RA-86511 |
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3D-RTI |
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“ |
TL-ACL |
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GosNii GA |
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Became C5-GNM (Gambia New Millenium Air) |
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Ilyushin 62M |
EL-ALM |
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3C-QQR (*58) |
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Jetline Int’l |
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Became 5A-DNY (Jetline Int’l, Equ. Guinea) |
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Ilyushin 62M |
XU-299 |
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3C-QQZ |
Became TL-ABW (Jetline
Int’l, Equ. Guinea) |
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Mekong Air |
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Boeing 707 |
G-HEVY |
EL-LAT |
Became YA-PAM (Pamir, Afghanistan) and 9G-OLD (Johnsons
Air) |
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HeavyLift Cargo, UK |
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Boeing 707 |
9Q-CKB |
EL-RDS (*)(*59) |
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Hewa Bora, Congo |
Became 9G-AYO (Air Ghana)
and TN-AGO (Equaflight) |
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Tupolev 154M |
YL-LAI |
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3D-RTP |
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became |
TL-ACF (*60) |
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Baltic
Express |
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Became ER-TAG (Moldtransavia,, Moldava) |
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Yakovlev 42D |
RA-42428 |
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3C-LLL |
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became UN-42428 (¨Irbis Air) |
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Yakovlev 40 |
ES-AAT |
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3D-YAC |
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became
TL-ACO |
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Estonian Air |
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(crash 19/05/1999 Berberati) |
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Yakovlev 40 |
ES-AAR |
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3D-YAK |
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“ |
TL-ACP (*61) |
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Estonian Air |
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Became RA-87333 (Polyot
Rossiskaya, Russia) |
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Yakovlev 40 |
ES-AAU |
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3D-YAQ |
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(*62) |
TL-ACQ to EX-87802 (¨Air Bas) |
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Estonian Air |
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Became ER-YGC (Renan Air) |
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Yakovlev 40 |
CCCP-87709 |
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TL-ACH (damaged in Kenya) |
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Antonov 72 |
unknown |
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EL-ALX (*63) to ES-NOH, Enimex |
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Antonov 72 |
RA-72934 |
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3D-RTV |
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became TL-ACV (*64) stored Ras Al Khaimah |
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Antonov 72 |
CCCP-72944 |
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3D-RTW |
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“ |
TL-ACW |
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(crash 06/10/2000, Luzamba, Angola) |
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Antonov 72 |
unknown |
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TL-ADF (*65) to Lybian Arab Air |
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Ilyushin 18V |
YR-IME, Tarom |
EL-AHO |
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Became EL-AHO (Santa Cruz Imperial, Liberia) |
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Ilyushin 18V |
YR-IMD, Tarom |
3D-ALQ |
Became EL-ADY (Santa Cruz), EX-7504 (KAS Air), ER-ICM(Renan), EX-011(Phoenix) |
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Ilyushin 18D |
RA-75497 |
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Ilyushin 18V |
LZ-AZC |
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Air Zory (*) (*72) |
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became UN-75003 (*73) (¨Irbis Air) |
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Ilyushin 18D |
SP-FNW |
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Polonian AW |
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became UN-75004 (*76) (¨Irbis Air) |
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Ilyushin 18D |
SP-FNZ |
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3D-SBZ (*77) |
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(destroyed Nov 1998,
Congo) |
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Polonian AW |
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Ilyushin 18V |
EL-ARK (*78) |
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“ |
3C-KKR (*79) |
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Santa Cruz |
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became UN-75002 (*80) (¨Irbis Air)
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Antonov 12BP |
D2-FVD |
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became 3C-KKO (¨Air Bas) |
||||||
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VonHaaf Air,Luanda |
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|
(Fate unknown) |
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Antonov 12BP |
RA-11321 |
EL-AKR (*83) |
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Became YA-PAA (Pamir Air) and EL-ALF (Santa Cruz) |
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Antonov 12BP |
RA-46971 |
EL-AKV (*84) |
3D-AKV |
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became |
TL-ACJ (Fate unknown) |
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Antonov 12BP |
RA-11216 |
El-AKW |
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Became YA-PAB ( |
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Antonov 12BP |
RA-11374 |
EL-RDL (*) (*86) à 3D-RDL |
became TL-ACR (*87) stored RasAlKhaimah |
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Antonov 12V |
RA-12975 |
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(crash 31/03/2005, Mukalla, Yemen) |
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Antonov 24RV |
RA-48091 |
EL-AKO (*90) |
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(stored
Brazzaville) |
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Antonov 24RT |
CCCP-26189 |
3C-KKM ( | |||||||
