Israeli arms dealers differ over responsibility for shipment to Colombian paramilitaries

By JUAN ZAMORANO, Associated Press Writer

Tue May 7, 7:21 PM ET

PANAMA CITY, Panama - The Nicaraguan government, Israeli arms dealers and the U.S. government have denied knowing that a shipment of Kalishnikov rifles was headed to a Colombian paramilitary group that the U.S. government has branded as terrorist.

The U.S. State Department said it knew vaguely about the deal, but thought it involved only old weapons bound for collectors in the United States — not 3,000 Kalishnikov rifles headed for the paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which has been implicated in some of the most brutal massacres of that country's civil war.

One of the four Israeli arms dealers implicated in the purchase of the rifles from a police stockpile in Nicaragua said he had been interested in sending weapons to the Congo, not Colombia.

Wes Carrington, spokesman for the State Department's Western Hemisphere section, said former Nicaraguan Interior Minister Rene Herrera had mentioned the trade to U.S. Ambassador Oliver P. Garza in early 2000.

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