British Arms Trader Jailed For Breaching Sudan Embargo

(RTTNews) - A British millionaire-businessman who illegally sold used military personnel carriers to war-ravaged Sudan in breach of an official embargo was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison, and ordered to pay ?5,000 costs.

A Southwark Crown Court in London heard that Andrew Jackson, 46, ignored repeated official warnings not to export the 15 amphibious personnel carriers to the African state (The bloody conflict in that country has already claimed more than 300,000 lives and displaced millions of others). He reportedly committed the offenses between January 2005 and March 2006.

Jackson owns Doncaster-based military equipment-supplier L Jackson & Co, one of the largest suppliers of used military equipment in the world.

He pleaded guilty to first shipping ?322,000-worth of Hagglund BV206s to Norway and then sending them south, and, in the process, knowingly flouted a 2004 British trade prohibition on items which could be used by the Sudanese military to wage war in Darfur.

Steven Smithey, 28, who worked for Jackson, also admitted the charge. He was sentenced to a 35-week imprisonment, suspended for two years, and given a 150-hour unpaid work order for sending three e-mails about the illegal transaction.

Jackson was arrested and his computers seized following a raid on his offices in March 2007.

Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith told Jackson he could not ignore the number and quality of references provided to the court in the case which made his decision to flout the export law all the more remarkable.

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