British arms dealer defends attempts to supply Sudan

A BRITISH arms dealer yesterday tried to defend his attempts to sell weapons to the Sudanese government on the grounds that people had supplied weapons to Hitler and "he was the biggest tyrant of the lot".

John Knight admitted that, while the ethnic cleansing in Sudan was at its height he had been involved in negotiations to sell large quantities of weapons to the Khartoum regime. One of his business associates insisted the deals would not have breached any United Nations restrictions, although a European Union embargo on arms deals with Sudan was in place.

Among the weapons he had been asked to supply were 130mm field guns, T72 main battle tanks, multiple rocket launchers and semi-automatic pistols.

Mr Knight - who lives in Kent with his wife, Jacqueline, a director of one of the companies named in an Amnesty International report into the arms deals - also agreed to supply Sudan’s government with a number of Antonov AN26 aircraft. The UN has accused Sudan of using such aircraft to bomb its own people in Darfur.

The deals were eventually abandoned after a change in the British law in May, which would have left Mr Knight liable to criminal prosecution for breaching the ten-year-old EU embargo.

The new Export Control Act prevented British nationals and residents from brokering weapons deals to countries subject to an EU arms embargo, such as Sudan.

Yesterday, however, Mr Knight was unapologetic about his dealings with the Sudanese government. "I was involved in negotiations with them," he said. "What you’ve got to remember is that, until the law was introduced, it was not illegal."

He said the Sudanese approached him through a third party, but with the change in the law, the only items he could supply were crop sprayers, underwear for the Sudanese army and Antonov AN26 transport planes. The Antonovs are the transport workhorse of many former Soviet states and can be fitted with bomb racks. They have been widely used by the Sudanese air force to bomb villages in Darfur.

Mr Knight said he could not be expected to consider what the planes would be used for. "How can you use it as a bomber? It is a freighter - it is not a bomber, as such, is it? I was selling them a transport aircraft that was going to be used for transport of, as I understood it, aid," he said.

He said talks to supply Khartoum began through an intermediary in Moscow up to two years ago. He had continued until July this year in the hope that the EU embargo might be lifted. "You always have hope of hopes that something is going to happen," he said. "When the ceasefire was signed in a neighbouring country [the peace agreement signed by the Sudanese government and Darfurian rebels] you think, well, perhaps they will lift the embargo now."

He suggested there was no difference in dealing with the British or the Sudanese governments.

"If the British Army come on to me tomorrow to get them an emergency supply of ammunition for Iraq, do I say I can’t do it because I know what you are going to use the ammunition for? Do you take your high chair and say you shouldn’t have done that, you are morally wrong because you are supplying the British Army that are in Basra ... you may take the moral high ground and say you are killing Iraqi civilians."

Asked why he was prepared to deal with the Sudanese government when it had demonstrated that it was not a reputable regime, he replied: "Nor was Hitler, but people were supplying him with stuff. He was the biggest tyrant of the lot.

"Saddam Hussein was being supplied by the British government and he was killing his own people."

Mr Knight’s associate, Brian Foster, who was involved with an arms-dealing consortium, said that Mr Knight had not breached any UN rules. "The UN informed John Knight that there was no embargo on arms shipments," he said.