Germans on trial for arming Iraq

Two Germans accused of illegally equipping Iraq with technology to build long range cannon went on trial today for violating German arms export laws.

Two Germans accused of illegally equipping Iraq with technology to build a long range cannon went on trial today for violating German arms export laws.

The role of foreign companies selling equipment to Iraq was highlighted last month when the names of firms that sold weapons and equipment to Baghdad for its military programmes were released by the United Nations.

Although most of the transactions took place before the 1991 UN sanctions against Iraq were in place, the lists showed that German companies were deeply involved. More than half the firms listed were German.

The defendants called before the Mannheim state court, however, were conducting their business in 1999, long after the UN embargoes against Iraq were in place.

Bernd Schompeter, 59, and Willi Heinz Ribbeck, 53, have been accused of setting up front companies in Jordan and using an Iraqi middleman to “deliver drills capable of and made to build artillery cannon and worth a total of €200,000 to Iraq.”

If found guilty, they face up to 15 years in prison. A verdict is expected by January 31. Iraq has dismissed the allegations as part of a plot inspired by Israel and the United States.

While the amount of sales of arms and arms-related material from Germany and other Western countries has dropped considerably in the past 10 years, thanks to harsher export laws, trials such as the one in Mannheim show how much work remains to be done to improve enforcement, according to nuclear watchdog groups.

“It is easier to go to an old client than to find a new one,” said Kelly Motz of the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.