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Germany ‘halts all arms shipment to Turkey’

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Germany has frozen all arms shipment to Turkey after Ankara arrested several human rights activists, including a German national.

The Bild newspaper reported on Friday that Germany was “freezing all planned and ongoing arms deliveries to Turkey.”

In the months after the July 2016 abortive coup in Turkey against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Germany had already blocked 11 separate arms shipments to Turkey, including handguns, ammunition, and weapons components.

The latest move came after a Turkish court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for six human rights activists for allegedly aiding a “terror” group, among them German citizen Peter Steudtner.

The arrests further strained the already tarnished relations between the two NATO allies.

Relations between Turkey and Germany, which is home to three million ethnic Turks, have been badly strained over what Europeans describe as Turkey’s human rights violations.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble criticized Turkey for acting like the former Communist East Germany.

He advised Germans traveling to Turkey to be careful not to get arrested as the crackdown against opposition and dissent continues.

“If Turkey does not stop playing this little game, we need to tell people: ‘You travel to Turkey at your own risk — we can’t guarantee you anything anymore,’” Schaeuble separately told Bild.

“Turkey is arresting people arbitrarily and not respecting even minimal consular standards,” said Schaeuble, comparing Erdogan’s Turkey with the former communist German Democratic Republic (GDR).

“It reminds me of the way it was in the GDR. When you traveled there, you knew, if something happens to you, nobody can help you,” he said.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry: Russia to supply arms worth $200 million on time

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Russia to supply armsYEREVAN. – Deadlines of Russia’s arms supply to Armenia at the expense of Russia’s export loan amounting to $200 million have not been violated, head of the Defense Policy Department of the Defense Ministry Levon Ayvazyan told reporters on Tuesday.

“Of course, many types of arms have already been imported to Armenia. We will show the weapons that are already in Armenia at the first opportunity,” Ayvazyan has noted.

Last year Russian Government and Armenian authorities signed an agreement on providing export loan in the amount of $200 million for ten years on a deferred basis till the beginning of 2018.

According to the Agreement Annex, Armenia purchases from Russia “Smerch” multiple rocket launcher with its ammunition, “Igla-S” air defense system, Autabase-M ground-based communication surveillance system, TOS-1A multiple rocket launcher with transloaders, 9M113M guided projectile, RPG-26 grenade launcher, Dragunov sniper  rifles,  combat car “Tiger,”  engineer assets and communication gears.

Croatia Sells Record Number of Arms to Saudi Arabia in 2016

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Zagreb sold a record amount of aging weapons and ammunition to Saudi Arabia in 2016, ignoring evidence the arms are regularly being diverted to Syria.

Croatia has drastically increased its sales of decades-old arms and ammunition to Saudi Arabia despite mounting evidence that the deliveries are being diverted to Syria in breach of European Union (EU) and international law.

Though it has one of the best and most expensively equipped armies in the Middle East, the Gulf Kingdom imported US$ 81.7 million in aging ammunition, including bullets, mortars, rockets, and rocket and grenade launchers worth $5.8 million from Croatia during the first nine months of 2016. This total is already double Croatia’s sales to Saudi Arabia over the previous four years, and the final value will likely be higher, as figures for the last quarter have not yet been published.

Igor Tabak, a Croatian defense analyst, said that the country does not currently produce ammunition. “It is quite likely that the exports come from old ammunition,” he said, “possibly from the inventory of the former Yugoslavia and Eastern [Bloc] production.”

While Croatia has consistently refused to acknowledge that it is profiting from liquidating its old stocks on the Syrian battlefields, defense ministry documents reviewed by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) show a major surge in sales from its stockpile coinciding with the start of the civil war in 2012.

According to those reports, the Ministry of Defense, which has a stockpile of around 18,000 tons, sold at least 5,000 tons of surplus ammunition in 2013 and 2014—as much as it had sold in the preceding decade.

The Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for additional information on who bought the armaments and whether additional sales were made in 2015 and 2016.

Arms Exports: A State Secret

Croatia was among the first countries to supply weapons to Syrian rebels in the winter of 2012. The shipment was routed via Jordan with logistical support from the CIA and paid for by Saudi Arabia, according to a 2013 investigation by the New York Times.

Following a flurry of embarrassing news coverage, Croatia abruptly started removing key information, such as the final destination of its exports, from official reports in an attempt to keep the details of this trade out of the headlines.

The Ministry of Economy, which is responsible for issuing import/export licenses for weapons and ammunition, told BIRN and OCCRP that a 2012 law on personal data protection prohibits it from giving out this information. This is disputed by the Croatian Data Protection Agency, which said the legislation applies only to individuals, not to companies or governments.

Five non-governmental organizations described the removal of information as a “troubling decline in transparency” in their submission to a United Nations (UN) Human Rights Panel on Croatia in March 2015.

Reporters, however, obtained the data via a little-known UN database, Comtrade, which contains annual international trade statistics from more than 170 countries.

The UN database revealed that Croatia exported $36 million worth of ammunition to Jordan in the two years since the Syrian conflict began in 2012. After Croatia’s role became public, Saudi Arabia took over importing more than $124 million worth of ammunition since 2014 – two thirds in the first nine months of 2016 alone.

The two countries also imported more than $21 million in weapons, including rocket and grenade launchers, since 2012.

Prior to 2012, the arms trade between Croatia, Jordan and Saudi Arabia was virtually nonexistent. Since 2012, all but a few hundred thousand dollars of Croatia’s ammunition sales have gone to Jordan or Saudi Arabia.

A spokesperson of the Croatian Ministry of Economy said that the latest exports took place in accordance with licenses approved in 2015. He also added that some export licenses to Saudi Arabia were rejected in 2015, and none were issued in 2016 but refused to provide any further detail.

An earlier investigation by BIRN and OCCRP revealed that Croatia approved $302 million worth of arms export licenses over this period. Unless these licenses are revoked, millions of dollars in future exports are approved to go forward.

Falling Into the Wrong Hands

While experts have previously highlighted video and photographic evidence of Croatian-made RBG-6 grenade launchers and RAK-12 multiple-launch rocket systems in Syria, Croatian officials have disputed their origin, pointing out that similar weapons are produced elsewhere.

However, new analysis by BIRN and OCCRP of the social media profiles used by brigades fighting in Syria, as well from online enthusiasts who monitor the spread of weapons, provide clear evidence that these weapons are Croatian-made.

Source: http://hetq.am/eng/news/76018/croatia-sells-record-number-of-arms-to-saudi-arabia-in-2016.html

How Chechens selling arms to Azeris were killed in London

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In late February 1993, a high ranking Chechen official, an aide to rebel leader and the first President of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Dzhokhar Dudayev, 38-year-old Ruslan Outsiev and his brother Nazarbek, 20, were killed at their London penthouse. As it turned out later, the assassination was linked to the Armenian security service members.

PanARMENIAN.Net – According to the primary lead, the two were killed to prevent purchase of missiles for Azerbaijan. PAN has studied the publications in foreign and Armenian Diaspora’s media outlets and presents the key circumstances of the incident.

Official Grozny said at that time that the Outsiev brothers arrived in London as Dudayev’s envoys with a brief to arrange the printing of passports and banknotes for the new Chechen state. However, along with their public mandate to print the documents of the putative Chechen state, they had a number of other missions: to secure a $250 million loan from an American businessman for the modernization of Chechnya’s huge oil refineries; to conclude negotiations with the German energy company Stinnes AG for the quick sale of Chechen oil at world prices; and as investigators later discovered, to purchase 2,000 ground-to-air Stinger missiles.

Ruslan Outsiev was the volatile Dudayev’s most trusted adviser and a hard-liner in the faction-ridden administration. His brother was a martial arts expert and general muscle-for-hire, although, Grozny said, he left for the British capital to study English. In London, Ruslan Outsiev posed as Chechen Prime Minister, but he actually was a vice chairman of the supreme presidential council headed by Dudayev.

As it often happens, Ruslan Outsiev was also a criminal authority with haughty ways. He visited expensive restaurants, booked ‘elite’ prostitutes and bought a flat for £700,000 (according to some sources, he paid £1,000,000) in Sherlock Holmes’s reputed domicile at 221B Baker Street.

To embark on complex negotiations, the Chechen government representatives needed a skilled interpreter and fixer. Ruslan Outsiev remembered that he was once interviewed by a BBC producer, Alison Ponting, and he turned to her for help. She suggested her husband, Gagik Ter-Oganisyan, who lived in London since 1988 and was a swimming-pool attendant at Wandsworth baths, hoping, perhaps, that he would find gainful employment. Thus, Ter-Oganisyan was hired by Outsiev for his London trip as a translator, guide and adviser.

A student of Russian and Eastern European Studies at Manchester University, Alison Ponting, visited Armenia in 1984 for a training, when she met Ter-Oganisyan, fell in love and kept up communicating upon returning to Britain. In 1988, they got married in Yerevan and moved to London, where Gagik, a salesman, started working as a swimming-pool attendant. Later, with his wife’s help, he went into business, exporting computers, faxes and cheap clothes to the post-soviet state.

Ter-Oganisyan attended the meetings Outsiev held and witnessed signing of contacts. At some point, relations between the Armenian and the Chechens soured. Later, England’s Crown Prosecution Service insisted that Ter-Oganisyan had discovered that the Stinger missiles were destined for Azerbaijan to be deployed in the war against his home country, Armenia. Ter-Oganisyan alerted one of his friends, Armenian KGB member Mkrtich Martirosyan, to the Utsiev brothers’ activities. The prosecution also said that a couple of hitmen were dispatched from Los Angeles, the center of the Armenian Diaspora in the United States, to London.

Disguised as the head of the Armenian chamber of commerce, senior KGB member Ashot Sargsyan arrived in London to prevent the bargain. With the help of Alison Ponting, who was, however, unaware of the goings-on, Martirosyan also got a UK entry visa.

Upon his arrival, Martorisyan met with Outsiev in Langham Hotel (Ter-Oganisyan was also present) to dissuade him from the purchase of missiles. However, Outsiev did not change his mind, thus, according to the British prosecutors, signing his own death-warrant. Determined to eliminate the Chechen, Martorisyan left for Los Angeles to hire a killer, Ashot Detmenjian. (In some documents the hitman is mentioned as Arthur, but he was presumably the same person, A. Detmenjian.) On February 20, Martorisyan returned to London, rented an apartment in a suburb and waited for the killer to arrive. However, due to certain visa problems, Detmenjian failed to reach Great Britain.

On February 26, Nazarbek Outsiev went into hospital for a sinus operation, providing the perfect opportunity for his older brother’s murder. The Chechen official was killed with three shots to the head in his luxury apartment. Two days later, Nazarbek was killed the same way upon being released from hospital. The only reason for killing the younger brother was, as it turned out later, to prevent inevitable revenge of the outraged Chechen kin.

After purchasing a fridge-freezer with a cardboard box to hold the elder Outsiev’s decomposing body, the Armenians paid two delivery men £450 to take “17th century statue” to a rented flat in London suburb. Unfortunately, the box split and the smell alarmed the men. By the time they contacted police, Nazarbek was also dead.

The policemen detained Martirosyan and Ter-Oganisyan, when they entered the Outsievs’ apartment with electric saw and sacks to disjoint Nazarbek’s body and take it away. The gun was also found at the site.

Alison Ponting was arrested as well. However, she was released after the police found out that she was completely unaware of the events.

The reasons for the double homicide were not immediately clear and the police initially thought that the brothers were killed in a robbery attempt, but the circumstances that were revealed in the course of the investigation prompted that the motive was different.

Days after the murder, Chehchen media outlets reported that it was masterminded by the Russian special services with a purpose to intimidate the Chechen leadership and make them sign the federal agreement. After the arrest, Ter-Oganisyan pleaded not guilty of killing the Outsiev brothers. The prosecution later said that he had taken a German translator on a diversionary shopping trip on that day.

Martirosyan, on the contrary, admitted the crime and confessed being a member of the Armenian national security service and acting by the order of Ashot Sargsyan. However, he later retracted, saying that the brothers were killed by a hired hitman. During the arrest, policemen discovered a small phial of snake venom under a bandage on Martirosyan’s wrist, apparently intended for his suicide. Shortly afterwards, customs officers intercepted another phial of snake venom sent by an Armenian in the United States to Ter-Oganisyan’s home presumably ordered by his wife. Alison Ponting was arrested again but soon released for absence of a crime in the act.

When in jail, Martirosyan had a visitor. According to some sources, it was Ashot Sargsyan, who gave him a flap dipped into snake poison to cut his hand and thus commit suicide. However, this attempt was also frustrated. Finally, Martirosyan hung himself in the prison cell.

The British police described Martirosyan as a clever man with a good sense of humor, despite being a brutal criminal. According to sources, the KGB threatened to settles scores with his family members in Yerevan. “The KGB will not forgive anyone,” Martirosyan used to say.

The man’s body was transported to Armenia by the request of his family. The employees of the Armenian embassy in London were not present at the trial and denied any connection of the national security service to the double homicide.

The police failed to find Sargsyan in the UK, however, he was killed in Moscow several months later in unclear circumstances.

As to Ter-Oganisyan, his direct involvement in the crime was not established in court. Although, the prosecution never knew who pulled the trigger as there were no fingerprints on the gun, Ter-Oganisyan was given a life sentence in October 2013. His wife suffered severe stress. In addition to his husband’s verdict she has become an object of revenge for the Chechens. Her life was attempted several times until her sister, Karen, who looked alike, was shot dead at the door of her house in April 1994. After the incident, Ponting was guarded by the police for a long time. There is no information available about her fate.

On the front picture, you see Afghan Mujahideen with Stinger missiles during the war

Sources:

Independent. Armenian jailed for London KGB killings: Arms deal led to deaths of brothers from rebel Russian republic in luxury flat

The New York Times. “McMafia”

E. Mickolus, S. Simmons, Terrorism, 1992-1995: A Chronology of Events and A Selectively Annotated Bibliography , 1997 Kommersant. Chechens killed for attempt to help Azerbaijan

Armenian International Magazine, Mission unraveled. The macabre case of the Dead Chechens, 1993, December

Hyusisapayl. “How Chechens’ attempt to buy Stinger missiles was frustrated”

Samson Hovhannisyan / PanARMENIAN.Net

Eastern Europe and the lucrative Middle East arms trade

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balken weaponsRobert Stephen Ford, the US ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, told BIRN and the OCCRP that the trade is coordinated by the American secret service, the CIA, and expedited via Turkey and the Gulf States. By shipping to destinations that initially appear unsuspicious, he said, suppliers can circumvent all mandatory approval procedures. Furthermore, many of the flight documents investigated by BIRN contained no information whatsoever on cargo that weighed thousands of tons. Arms shipments from Bulgaria and Slovakia were flown out as “unidentified cargo.”

Weapons like these from eastern Europe are in use in Syria, not only by the rebels of the Free Syrian Army, but also by the Islamist fighters of Ansar al-Sham and the al-Nusra Front (now Fatah al-Sham), which until recently was allied with al-Qaida, as well as the group calling itself “Islamic State.” The two organizations BIRN and OCCRP have provided evidence of this, primarily photos and videos and images from social media.

Many eastern European countries supply arms to the Middle East. The trade is said to be worth more than a billion euros, with the majority of goods going to Saudi Arabia. But the weapons don’t stay there. Their ultimate destination is the war in Syria.

War-torn Syria is full of arms: thousands of AK47 assault rifles, machine guns, mortar shells, rocket launchers and anti-tank weapons, aging T-55 and T-72 tanks. Most are believed to come from the following countries: Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Montenegro, Serbia and Romania. They reach Syria via a circuitous route. First, they are sent by air or sea to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates or Turkey – then on from there to the war zone. The trade is worth 1.2 billion euros.

Years gathering proof

Journalists from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) researched for years to expose these arms transport routes. They analyzed export data and United Nations reports. They watched hundreds of videos and looked at hundreds of photos; they traced the movements of ships and planes, read arms contracts, and followed up on numerous tips from the arms dealers’ milieu.

A couple of examples: In a confidential document from 2013 obtained by BIRN and OCCRP, a high-ranking official in the Serbian defense ministry describes how arms shipments to Saudi Arabia were rerouted from there to Syria. And a detailed analysis of cargo planes provided evidence of more than 70 plane movements that were related to the indirect delivery of weapons to the conflict zone.

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/eastern-europe-and-the-lucrative-middle-east-arms-trade/a-19459840

 

 

Germany: German-Turkish bombmaker sentenced over illegal arms

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German-turkish terroristA Frankfurt court has sentenced a German-Turkish man to two and a half years in jail for breaking weapons laws, after police found a bomb in his cellar. He had originally been accused of planning to attack a bike race.

The 36-year old from the town of Oberursel, near Frankfurt, was guilty of possession of illegal weapons and falsification of documents, the court ruled on Monday.

The police arrested Halil D. and his wife in April last year, following a tip from a supply store that the couple had bought chemicals that could be used for homemade bombs. The two provided fake personal details during the purchase, police said.

During the search of the defendant’s home, the authorities also found a pipe bomb, an assault rifle, ammunition and a bazooka grenade. According to unconfirmed information, the couple was scoping out the route of a large bicycle race scheduled for May 1. The officials canceled the event due to safety fears.

Islamist ties

The dual Turkish-German national was already known to police for a range of offenses, including assault. He was reported to have close ties with Islamist extremists in Germany. Police also said they found videos of a violent and extremist nature while searching computers seized in the couple’s Oberursel residence.

The defendant’s wife was soon released, however, after claiming she did not know about the materials her husband kept in the basement. She said they had bought the chemicals to remove mould.

During the trial, the man claimed that he had made the pipe bomb as a teenager some 20 years ago, and forgotten about it.

The court said there was not enough evidence showing that the defendant had considered an attack. Instead, he was convicted of keeping the illegal weapons cache.

dj/tj (dpa, AFP, AP)

Russian-Armenian Arms Contracts ‘Mostly Signed’

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A Russian TOS-1A multiple rocket launcher (Photo: Reuters)

A Russian TOS-1A multiple rocket launcher (Photo: Reuters)

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)—Most of the contracts required for the upcoming delivery of large amounts of Russian weapons to Armenia have already been signed, according to the Russian ambassador in Yerevan, Ivan Volynkin.

Armenia is to pay for them with a $200 million loan which Russia pledged to allocate to in 2015. The Armenian government moved to speed up the implementation of the arms deal following the April 2 escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The government instructed the Armenian Defense Ministry to negotiate supply contracts with relevant Russian government agencies. “We are now working on the signing of the contracts,” Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian said during his April 27 visit to Moscow.

“As far as I know, contracts relating to most of that [Russian-Armenian loan] agreement have already been signed,” Volynkin said on Monday. “The deliveries will be carried out within mutually acceptable time frames.”

The Russian envoy did not give any dates. “You can’t just pick a weapon somewhere and [immediately] get it,” he said. “It has to be produced, and that takes time.”

Meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Yerevan on April 7, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian complained about a “certain slowdown” in the implementation of the $200 million deal by Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms exporter. He asked Medvedev to help “conclude the contracts” with the Armenian side.

“You see, every country has bureaucratic methods that do not allow for immediate solutions,” Volynkin said in that regard. “You need to work out the list of weapons, terms for the delivery and the like.”

In February, Moscow disclosed the types of military hardware which Yerevan will be allowed to buy with the Russian credit. The deadliest of these weapons is the Smerch multiple-launch rocket system and TOS-1A heavy flamethrower designed to destroy defense fortifications and enemy personnel with thermobaric rockets.

Russia has reportedly sold 18 Smerch launchers and as many TOS-1A systems to Azerbaijan along with more than 90 T-90 tanks, over 30 combat helicopters and other offensive weapons. The Russian arms deliveries to Armenia’s arch-foe, reportedly worth about $5 billion, stemmed from contracts signed in 2009-2011.

Armenian leaders stepped up their criticism of those arms deals immediately after last month’s Azerbaijani military offensive in Karabakh. Medvedev effectively rejected the criticism, saying that Moscow sells weapons to both Armenia and Azerbaijan and thereby sustains the “military balance” in the Karabakh conflict.

Volynkin insisted that that balance has not been disrupted by the Russian-Azerbaijani defense contracts. Russia regards Armenia as a “strategic ally” and will continue to supply it with “the most advanced weapons,” he said.

“We will do everything in our power to preserve this allied relationship,” added the diplomat.

Ohanian similarly stated on April 27 that Yerevan will not reconsider its close military and political ties with Moscow. “I don’t see a single fact indicating that our strategic relations have been somehow disrupted or changed,” he said.

Armenia can also spend the Russian loan on buying, at discounted prices, Russian-made anti-tank weapons, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, demining and communication equipment, armored personnel carriers and heavy military trucks.

The anti-tank systems include 9M133 guided missiles that first went into service with the Russian army in the late 1990s. The 135-milimeter rockets can supposedly destroy tanks within a 4-kilometer range.

In 2015, the two sides also negotiated on the delivery of Russian Iskander missiles to the Armenian army. With a firing range of up to 500 kilometers, the sophisticated systems would make Azerbaijan’s vital oil and gas infrastructure even more vulnerable to Armenian missile strikes in the event of a full-scale war for Karabakh.

An Armenian army general claimed in April that Armenia already has such missiles in its military arsenal. The Defense Ministry in Yerevan did not deny or confirm the claim.

European Parliament calls for an embargo on arms shipments to Riyadh

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arton122572-480x238The European Parliament demanded Thursday an embargo on arms supplies to Saudi Arabia, criticizing its airstrikes in Yemen and the maritime blockade imposed on the country, which made “thousands of deaths”.

In a resolution adopted by a large majority at a plenary session in Brussels, MEPs call on the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, to “launch an initiative to impose an arms embargo EU against Saudi Arabia. “

They condemn “the coalition airstrikes led by Saudi and the naval blockade it has imposed in Yemen, which have led to thousands of deaths, and yet further destabilized” the country. In a statement, the humanitarian organization Action against Hunger was immediately welcomed that the EU “finally spoke again on this crisis, one of the most serious in the world today.”

While the text is not binding but for Mike Penrose, CEO of Action against Hunger France, “this resolution is a signal to all Member States inviting them to break the silence and to no longer participate in disaster humanitarian underway in Yemen. “

Riyadh led since March 2015 Arab-Sunni coalition in Yemen against Houthi Shiite rebels, accused of being supported by Iran. These, from their stronghold of Saada (north), took control of many areas including the capital Sanaa. The government recognized by the international community based in Aden (south), although its leaders often stay in Riyadh for security reasons. The conflict in Yemen has more than 6,100 dead, nearly half civilians, and about 30,000 injured, according to the UN.

The United States is the leading arms supplier to Saudi Arabia, with sales reaching $ 90 billion between 2010 and 2014 by the Congress, but the main countries of the EU have also recently delivered bombs, equipment or signed arms contracts for billions of euros. According to Avaaz NGOs, including an online petition collected 750,000 signatures, the United Kingdom has authorized in 2015 the sale of fighter jets and unmanned Paveway bombs. France signed in October 2015 contracts with Saudi Arabia in the maritime and military sectors whose value is estimated at more than ten billion euros, says Avaaz.

The UN expressed concern early January of the use of cluster munitions in Yemen by the Arab coalition led by Riyadh, saying they had received “disturbing reports” about their use in attacks against residential areas and buildings civilians in Sanaa on 6 January.

Its secretary-general Ban Ki-moon warned Riyadh, noting that it “could constitute a war crime.”

Thursday, February 25, 2016,
Stéphane © armenews.com

Russia arms Su-34s with air-to-air missiles in Syria for 1st time

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Sukhoi Su-34 jet fighter REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov (RUSSIA) - RTR1T158

Sukhoi Su-34 jet fighter REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov (RUSSIA) – RTR1T158

Russian Su-34 bombers, additionally equipped with air-to-air missiles, have set out on their first mission in Syria, said Igor Klimov, spokesman for the Russian Air Force.

“Today, Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers have made their first sortie equipped not only with high explosive aviation bombs and hollow charge bombs, but also with short- and medium-range air-to-air missiles,” Klimov said.

“The planes are equipped with missiles for defensive purposes,” he added.

The missiles have target-seeking devices and are “capable of hitting air targets within a 60km radius,” he said.

Turkish F-16s shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber operating in Syria on November 24, with Ankara claiming that the warplane had violated Turkish airspace. Moscow has rejected the claims, saying that according to its military intelligence the Su-24 never left Syrian airspace.

On Monday, Turkey’s prime minister said that Ankara will not apologize for the incident.

“No Turkish prime minister or president will apologize … for doing our duty,” Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters after meeting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels.

In the wake of the downing, President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed a decree imposing a package of economic sanctions against Turkey. The measures include banning several Turkish organizations and the import of certain goods. Under the sanctions, the visa-free regime for Turkish nationals traveling to Russia will be suspended starting next year. The Russian government has also been tasked with introducing a ban on charter flights between Russia and Turkey and to enhance security control at Russian ports on the Sea of Azov and Black Sea.

Russia has been conducting airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants (IS, former ISIS, ISIL) and other terrorist groups in Syria since September 30. The strikes were launched after a formal request from Damascus. Russian jets have been carrying out sorties from Moscow’s Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia.

On Thursday, Moscow recalled its military representative from Turkey. At the same time Russian Defense Ministry said that all channels of military cooperation with Ankara were suspended including a hotline set up to share information about Russian airstrikes in Syria.

Turkish prosecutor says Turkish officials involved in supplying arms to radical Syrian Islamist groups,

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Two MİT trucks en route to Syria were intercepted by gendarmes on Jan. 19

Two MİT trucks en route to Syria were intercepted by gendarmes on Jan. 19

Turkish officials, including intelligence agency personnel, have been involved in the supply of weapons and ammunition to radical Syrian Islamist groups, particularly Ahrar ash-Sham, according to the team of prosecutors who previously carried out investigations into terrorist activities, including the infamous intervention into the weapon-laden trucks headed for Syria in January 2014. Report ZAMAN

Prosecutor Özcan Şişman, who was one of the four prosecutors jailed last month for intercepting trucks carrying arms into Syria, in 2014, testified in his defense to the Tarsus 2nd High Criminal Court in May that he had, on several occasions, spotted Turkish officials facilitating the flow of jihadists into Syria. Şişman also stated that a string of bombings within Turkey and on the Syrian border, as well as the transfer of arms into territory held by radical Islamist groups, were among the activities undertaken by the Turkish personnel, according to a report by Arzu Yıldız for the online news portal grihat.com.tr.

In January 2014, Adana prosecutor Özcan Şişman went to Hatay, a neighboring province that sits on the border with Syria, after a truck that was suspected of carrying arms into Syria was stopped. Two weeks later, another prosecutor, Aziz Takçı, intercepted three trucks that were carrying arms and medical supplies to Syria. The trucks were later found to be owned by the Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).

Then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly criticized the prosecutors and urged the authorities to arrest those who were involved in stopping the trucks. Erdoğan, former President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu described the trucks as a “state secret” and claimed that they were carrying baby formula and food to Syrian Turkmens.

Şişman said a crime committed by a state cannot be classified as a “state secret.” He argued: “It is a terror crime committed by officials.” He said only police and gendarmerie could carry weapons, not MİT.

Former Adana Chief Public Prosecutor Süleyman Bağrıyanık, former Adana Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Ahmet Karaca, Adana Prosecutors Aziz Takçı and Özcan Şişman and former Adana provincial gendarmerie commander Col. Özkan Çokay are facing charges ranging from espionage to membership in a terrorist organization to attempt “to topple or incapacitate the Turkish government.”

Şişman had been operating in border areas with Syria and was involved in many investigations into terrorist activities that popped up as a result of the Syrian civil war. Şişman said in his testimony that he detected Turkish public officials aiding a number of criminals ferrying arms and jihadists into Syria.

Ahrar ash Sham hasn’t publicly declared its affinity with al-Qaeda, but US officials said a number of al-Qaeda operatives have influenced the radical group after joining them. It is not part of the Free Syrian Army and most Western nations consider it a radical jihadist group.

Şişman: I wanted to avoid repeat of Reyhanlı

Şişman said previous incidents and investigations convinced him that any failure to intercept such a large-scale arms transfer could result in the deaths of dozens of Turkish people, as it had in Reyhanlı in 2013.

He noted that two suspects who stood trial as part of an investigation into the twin bombings in Reyhanlı, which claimed the lives of 53 people confessed that a Turkish official called H.T. had pushed them to mastermind the attack. H.T. was also accused of facilitating the entry of terrorists who killed three people including two police officers, in Niğde, in March 2014.

Republican People’s Party (CHP) former deputy Ali Özgündüz wrote on his social media account on Thursday that he had given a parliamentary questionnaire to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) regarding H.T., but received no reply.

In February 2013, the prosecutor said the investigation found that a MİT official purchased SIM cards for four suspects who orchestrated the car bombing attacks in Cilvegözü, a Turkish border town. At least 14 people were killed in the attack, including several Turkish nationals.

Yaşar Kavalcıoğlu: MİT personnel tried to coerce gendarmerie

Yaşar Kavalcıoğlu, the first prosecutor at the scene of the three trucks intercepted in Hatay’s Kırıkhan district, on Jan 1, 2014, said that there had been a squabble between the MİT agents accompanying the trucks and the gendarmerie forces sent to the scene by the prosecutors.

Kavalcıoğlu said in his defense statement, which he sent to the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) after the four prosecutors involved with the case were detained and arrested in May, that by the time he had reached the scene of crime, the gendarmerie were in a near stand-off with the MİT agents.

The gendarmerie officers told Kavalcıoğlu that the MİT agents had tried to convince them to switch the trailer of the trucks with empty ones, and had threatened to fight after the gendarmerie replied negatively. Kavalcıoğlu then states that he phoned Özcan Şişman, and asked if he could come and take over the investigation as it was his jurisdiction.

Investigation file manipulated to frame prosecutors

Süleyman Bağrıyanık said in his defense statement to the court that evidence proving his innocence was intentionally not included by the HSYK chief inspector, adding that the investigation against him amount to a campaign to frame him.

He said that he was being accused of acting together with the Adana deputy chief public prosecutor and the prosecutors who intercepted the trucks despite any evidence, by noting he did not hold any phone conversations with the prosecutors who intercepted the trucks, except on one occasion when Şişman called him upon the order of Kenan İpek, then-undersecretary to the Justice Minister.

Bağrıyanık maintained that he was not given the chance to disprove the allegation that he was in contact with the prosecutors who intercepted the trucks, as his request from the chief inspector to include the Historical Traffic Search (HTS) records, which show all mobile phone usage within the range of a specific cell tower, featuring his phone conversations with his colleagues including prosecutors and the deputy chief public prosecutor, was not met.

Bağrıyanık said that İpek called him several times, ordering him to halt the search of the trucks and remove the prosecutor conducting the search.

Saying that he disobeyed the order of Undersecretary İpek, Bağrıyanık added that he would have acted in accordance with İpek’s order if he had sent a document to him showing that the trucks’ were indeed used as part of MİT duty. He also lashed out at İpek for giving instructions to a jurist although the law prohibits third parties to sway the judgments of jurists.

“What I was supposed to do? Should I have acted [in accordance with İpek’s instruction] by saying ‘Yes, sir’ and removing the prosecutor from the file. Since when have administrators been informing the jurists on what constitutes a crime? If the search was against the law, the procedure is already set out in the Code on Criminal Procedure (CMK). Judiciary determines what constitutes an unlawful act, the administrators do not have such an authority” said Bağrıyanık.

Prosecutor Takçı: Trucks were full to the brim with weapons

Aziz Takçı, one of the four prosecutors involved in an investigation of the trucks belonging to MİT, which were allegedly carrying weapons to radical groups in Syria, testified in his defense to the Tarsus 2nd High Criminal Court regarding the investigation of the truck that the trucks were filled to the brim with weapons.

Prosecutor Takçı was one of the four prosecutors jailed for intercepting trucks carrying arms into Syria. Describing the events that unfolded on Jan. 19, 2014, when trucks later found to belong to MİT were stopped in the Ceyhan district of Turkey’s Adana province en route to Syria, Takçı said: “When I went to the scene there were two trucks. A few stubbly bearded men, claiming to be MİT operatives, were shouting, swearing. As I had gone to the scene of the search, I had to look at what was there. [The trucks] were full to the brim with weapons… 155mm [howitzer] shells, anti-aircraft munitions; I also saw munitions of different types and sizes.”

Turkey has wanted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad removed from power ever since an uprising that started at the end of 2011 turned into a fully fledged civil war in the neighboring country. Assad is a member of the Nusayri (Alawite) sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, whose members are a minority in both Syria and Turkey. However, Turkey has been accused of arming radical elements within Syria such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and Ahrar ash-Sham.

Ex-prosecutor Karaca: Interception of trucks carrying arms was legal

Former Adana Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Ahmet Karaca said in his defense that everything was done according to legal procedure. He also denied the charge brought against him of revealing state secrets.

Karaca said that as the deputy chief public prosecutor he had no authority to interfere in any prosecutor’s work and vouched for the investigations pursued by four public prosecutors who worked under his authority.

He said his mandate under the law was to oversee prosecutors in his office, taking on administrative duties such as assigning cases, preparing duty rosters and managing the office. He said his role didn’t allow him to legally interfere in any investigation pursued by independent prosecutors.

Karaca said he did not even know what a report drafted by the government-controlled HSYK chief inspector said about him because he was not allowed to see the case file with the supposed criminal evidence. When he asked the chief inspector to share the documents with him so he could file his defense, Karaca said the inspector cynically told him that the documents would not be relevant to his defense.

According to the leaked video footage of the hearing, he asked the presiding judge: “How can I defend myself if I am not allowed to examine the evidence?”