Makes me wonder how much smuggled stuff hasn't been reported or discovered. I'm also curious why there's no mention of the ATF being involved.
" KANSAS CITY (AP) - A U.S. Army captain facing a court-martial, accused of smuggling fully automatic weapons home while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom, will be discharged Tuesday, a military prosecutor said.
Capt. Clinton Sperry came under investigation in March after an anonymous tip that he mailed two AK-47 assault rifles, an MP5 submachine gun and a 9 mm pistol from the war zone in Iraq to his home in Oak Grove, said Maj. Everett Yates, the chief prosecutor handling the case at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Military prosecutors don’t intend to continue the case. But Brian Compton, who heads the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s Kansas City office, said the agency is exploring referring the case to a federal or state prosecutor.
"If someone brings guns in from out of the country, you could have customs violations, and if the weapons are illegal, there could be weapons violations," Compton said.
Sperry was an Army reservist with the 418th Civil Affairs Battalion in Belton. Civil affairs soldiers work with citizens in combat areas to ease the impact of fighting and to help restore order. About 90 members of the 418th returned to the Kansas City area from Iraq in March.
Yates said his office already had started the process to court-martial Sperry when he requested a discharge, which was granted by an Army review board and is effective Tuesday.
Soldiers who request discharges after criminal military investigations usually are given an "other than honorable discharge," Yates said.
Military investigators said they recovered four weapons from Sperry’s home that allegedly were mailed from Iraq to suburban Kansas City.
As recently as February, the U.S. Central Command issued orders advising commanders and soldiers not to bring "war souvenirs" or "war trophies" home from Iraq.
Military officials said that since the Vietnam War, similar orders have prohibited soldiers from "taking enemy material as a souvenirs" or any weaponry. "