Jury selected in trial of suspected arms dealer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A jury was picked on Monday for a trial of a suspected Syrian arms dealer extradited from Spain on charges of planning to supply arms including surface-to-air missile systems to Colombian rebels.
Opening arguments in the trial of Monzer al-Kassar, 62, a longtime Spanish resident known as the "prince of Marbella" for his rich lifestyle in the glitzy seaside town, are due to start on Wednesday.
He is accused of planning to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to protect a cocaine-trafficking business and attack U.S. interests.
Kassar, whom U.S. prosecutors call one of the most prolific arms dealers in the world, sat in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Monday as his lawyers and prosecutors picked a jury of twelve from a pool of more than 120 people.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiring to kill American nationals and officers, conspiring to acquire anti-aircraft missiles and providing support to a terrorist organization.
Kassar was extradited from Spain in June after Spain received assurances from U.S. authorities he would face neither the death penalty nor a life sentence without chance of parole.
He was arrested at the Madrid airport in June 2007 after his U.S. indictment said he knew the FARC kidnapped U.S. citizens to dissuade American efforts to disrupt the cocaine trade.
The U.S. government has designated the FARC as a foreign terrorist organization. The rebels have been fighting for socialist revolution since 1964 and have at times run large swathes of Colombia.
At the time of his arrest, prosecutors said Kassar had met with two confidential sources working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration at his home in Marbella and discussed the sale of weapons, including assault and sniper rifles and rocket propelled grenade launchers, to the FARC.
Kassar also offered to send 1,000 men to fight with the FARC against U.S. military officers, prosecutors allege.
The U.S. Embassy in Madrid said Kassar has been selling weapons since the 1970s to the Palestinian Liberation Front and clients in Nicaragua, Bosnia, Croatia, Iran, Iraq and Somalia.
Questions asked to the jurors included what concerns they had about terrorism, if they had ever heard of the FARC and whether they could give a fair trial to people whose business involved the sale of military weapons.
Two other men charged in the same case, Tareq Mousa al Ghazi, 61, of Lebanon and Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, 59, of Marbella, pleaded innocent in October 2007 to terrorism charges.
They were arrested in Bucharest, Romania but only Moreno Godoy will be prosecuted with Kassar after Ghazi's case was moved to a later date due to medical reasons.
(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Cynthia Osterman)
