In the wake of a Greek newspaper report Sunday that an
Israeli company is suspected of selling aircraft parts to Iran, it has emerged
that an Israeli company from the same Binyamina local council was also
suspected of selling the same Phantom warplane parts to Iran a decade ago.
According to Greek newspaper Kathimerini, the joint
American-Greek investigation revealed that Israeli arms dealers had tried to smuggle
spare parts for F-4 Phantom aircrafts to Iran through Greece, in a breach of
the international arms embargo imposed on Tehran.
In March 2004 , two Israelis were investigated on
allegations of planning to sell American-made spare parts for the Phantom to
Iran. The two, Avihai Weinstein and brother-in-law Eli Cohen, were also
suspected of planning to sell "Hawk" surface-to-air missiles. The
equipment was discovered during a police raid on a warehouse in Binyamina.
Cohen was also questioned in 2000 on suspicion of selling spare parts for
armored personnel carriers to Iran.
In 2002, another incident came to light, after German
customs officials discovered that Israeli-made equipment was bound for Iran via
Hamburg port. Weinstein was a central suspect in that investigation as well,
along with a Netanya-based arms dealer and the owners of a Netanya company, but
ultimately no charges were brought against him.
No comments:
Post a Comment