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Uzis from Israel found in Colombia

 
Published May 6, 1990|Updated Oct. 17, 2005

A supply of Uzi machine guns and other weapons, approved by the Israeli government last year for shipment to the eastern Caribbean island of Antigua, wound up instead in the hands of one of Colombia's most notorious drug traffickers. The Colombian authorities discovered the Israeli-made weapons and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition when they searched the ranch of Jose Rodriguez Gacha three months ago, after he was ambushed and killed by the Colombian police.

The mystery of how they made their way there has set off a number of investigations.

Israel has said only that it approved the arms for sale to the Antiguan government.

Antiguan officials say they neither ordered nor received the arms.

Evidence recently uncovered by a government investigation there traced the shipment to two former Israeli army officers, U.S. and Antiguan officials say.

One of the two, officials say, is wanted in Colombia on charges that he imported arms illegally and trained narcotics traffickers in armed tactics; the other is being sought by the United States because his produce company in Antigua defaulted on $1.3-million in loans from the United States.

U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence officials, as well as a Senate subcommittee, are concerned by mounting evidence that Colombian traffickers look to Israel for weapons, although the availability of some of these arms on the black market makes it difficult to trace their origin.

The Antiguan affair has heightened that unease.

After the weapons were found, Colombia filed an unusually blunt diplomatic protest with Israel.

Israel responded that the exported arms were based on a November 1988 purchase letter from Antigua's minister of national security to the government-owned Israel Military Industries.

They added that the letter assured there would be no third-party transfer.

There is no such Antiguan ministry, however, and Antiguan officials say they never ordered any arms.