.  FBI investigates suspect IRA arms smuggling deal in Florida
   Irish Times  (Ireland)
   March 11, 2002

Byline: JIM CUSACK; Security Editor
    The FBI and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) are working
together on what senior officers suspect might be another IRA arms
smuggling operation based in Florida.
    The case began last November when a Belfast man was found to be
attempting to buy large quantities of handguns. The 58-year-old man, whose
wife was killed by loyalists in the early
1970s, is in a Florida prison having pleaded guilty in January to making
false statements to acquire guns. He is due for sentence at the end of
this month.
    An FBI officer involved in breaking up the 1999 IRA gun -running
operation in Florida told the Daily Telegraph newspaper last week this
case bears resemblances to that operation. The
suspect, Mr Bernard Meli, from west Belfast spoke to a number of arms
dealers about acquiring large numbers of weapons, particularly handguns.
One source said he was attempting to buy
between 200 and 300.
    Interviewed in the Daily Telegraph, FBI special agent Mark Hastbacka
described Mr Meli as a "little unassuming man" who was not co-operating
with the authorities. "He's not very co-operative at all. He's a stand-up
guy going down without saying a word." It is believed Mr Meli lived in
England for a number of years and worked in the car trade. His wife Sandra
was shot dead by the Ulster Defence Association at their home in east
Belfast in 1972. Mr Meli was arrested by the Miami Joint Terrorist Task
Force last November after buying a .38 revolver and arranging to buy
another 20 guns. He gave a false address to the gun dealer.
   

Mr Hastbacka was involved in the case in which Conor Claxton, Anthony
Smyth and Martin Mullen were sentenced to between three and five years for
arms smuggling. Claxton had no
known IRA connections and Smyth was thought to have severed links with
the organisation many years previously. Mullen was a Sinn Fein electoral
worker but with no known IRA connections. In the previous arms smuggling
operation in Florida the IRA acquired several hundred guns, including
handguns and automatic shotguns, and sent them by mail to the Republic.
Most of the weapons were sent to rented houses where they were collected
and
distributed to IRA units in the Republic and Northern Ireland.
    According to some senior Garda sources, the IRA appears to be
replacing the arsenal which it acquired from Col Gadafy's regime in Libya
in the mid-1980s. A tranche of these weapons has
been destroyed in decommissioning. It is believed the IRA had around
1,000 AK47 assault rifles in its old arms dumps. It is expected that more
of this old arsenal might be destroyed before
the general election, if agreement can be reached with the British
government over the repatriation of IRA members "on the run" outside the
UK jurisdiction.
    Police and republican sources reported during 1999 that the IRA
leadership was telling its members it would only consider decommissioning
as long as it could replace the arsenal with new weapons. Meanwhile, the
PSNI is pursuing further investigations into the 1999 arms smuggling
operation which is now believed to have been far more extensive than
previously thought. One source suggested as many as 700 weapons might have
been imported from
the US over two years.
    The PSNI is expected to apply to the High Court today for access to
Garda documents on the operation. It is understood it has uncovered
details of money transfers from Northern Ireland
to the US to buy guns. Two men and a woman from west Belfast are under
investigation for sending "in excess of Sterling #10,000" to the US for
the purpose of buying guns.