LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20010618/t000050623.html

Monday, June 18, 2001

U.S. Links Gun Deal to Group That Attempted Trinidad Coup
Caribbean: Target of Fla. sting allegedly told federal agent he was sent
by Jamaat al Muslimeen, which staged 1990 siege.

By MARK FINEMAN, Times Staff Writer

   MIAMI--To all but a small circle of federal agents, the sting
operation seemed routine at first.
    After more than a year of negotiations, undercover agent Steve
McKean, working for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, led
his target to a nondescript warehouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where
McKean produced the wares:
    Sixty AK-47 assault rifles and 10 submachine guns equipped with
silencers--enough weaponry to stage a small coup in a small enough land.
    But more chilling than the arrest of McKean's Trinidad-born customer,
Keith Andre Glaude, two weeks ago on federal gun charges was Glaude's
declaration of whom he was working for. According to McKean's sworn
affidavit, Glaude told federal investigators that he was sent by Jamaat al
Muslimeen, a Black Muslim group that ranks among the most militant Islamic
forces in the Americas.
    Glaude, who pleaded not guilty in federal court last week, reportedly
identified his contact in Trinidad and Tobago as Lance "Fire" Small of
Jamaat al Muslimeen. In his affidavit, McKean also said he and an
informant had been negotiating directly with Small all along.
    Jamaat has a track record. In July 1990, the group seized Trinidad
and Tobago's Parliament at gunpoint, took the prime minister, legislators
and journalists hostage and blew up police headquarters with a car bomb
during a six-day siege. The accompanying revolt and rioting left more than
30 people dead.
    An ATF investigation after the siege found that many of the guns
Jamaat used were purchased in Fort Lauderdale's Broward County, according
to the bureau's regional spokesman, Ed Halley.
    During the same months that McKean was negotiating the arms sale this
year, Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister, Basdeo Panday, was warning his
oil- and gas-rich nation of 1.3 million people that another such plot was
afoot, making clear he was talking about Jamaat without naming the group.

    Group Denies Link to Arrested Man
    In the days since Glaude's arrest, Jamaat has disowned both him and
the gun sale. The group's security chief, Hasan Anyabwile, told reporters
in Trinidad and Tobago's capital, Port of Spain, "If he is claiming he
went for the guns on our behalf, that was a purely maverick and
unsolicited action on his part."
    Jamaat's leader, Yasin abu Bakr, a former police officer who launched
the 1990 coup attempt with more than 100 men, told a local radio station
that there was no connection between his group and Glaude.
    Abu Bakr, who has found limited appeal through the years in a
population divided equally between ethnic East Indians and mostly
Christian blacks, was initially jailed with his men and sentenced to death
for the coup attempt. The conviction was overturned on appeal in 1992, and
the entire group has been free since.

Small also was quoted by reporters in Trinidad as saying he had no
ties to Glaude or the guns, although he and Jamaat acknowledged that Small
is a Jamaat member who took part in the siege 11 years ago.

    Nation's Officials Worry New Plots Are Afoot
    But agent McKean's affidavit casts Glaude as a courier for Small and
Jamaat. The document indicates that the ATF assumed from the start of the
investigation, in February 2000, that the guns were destined for Jamaat.
McKean "taped numerous phone conversations" between himself and Small from
April 2000 until last March, according to his affidavit.
    McKean also stated that after Glaude took possession of the small
arsenal, Glaude called Small on his cellular phone to confirm that the
delivery had been made.
    ATF officials here declined to comment further on whether Small also
will be indicted, but spokesman Halley said the investigation is
continuing.
    Trinidad and Tobago's attorney general, Ramesh Maharaj, said the U.S.
has filed no extradition request for Small but that he would pursue it if
one was made. Trinidad and Tobago has extradited more suspected felons to
the U.S. than any other Caribbean country in recent years.
    Maharaj has voiced deep concern in recent months about illegal arms
shipments, coup plots and other discoveries.
    Two months ago, customs agents in Trinidad and Tobago seized two
armor-plated sport-utility vehicles that had been outfitted with mounts
for machine guns and missile launchers. The vehicles had been shipped from
the U.S.

    Armored Vehicles 'Were Equipped to Fight Wars'
    A sales agreement obtained by The Times shows the vehicles were
purchased last year for $300,000 by two Trinidadian American brothers who
later said they planned to resell them in the island nation. (The brothers
have sued to recover the 1998 Lincoln Navigators.)
    Maharaj declined to point fingers during an interview in Port of
Spain last month. He said only: "These vehicles were equipped to fight
wars. . . . How many other such vehicles have left for the Caribbean?
We're still looking for the answers."

Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times

Hey!  The BATF actually does something besides harrass gun owners, barbecue weird religious cults, entrap white seperatists and murder their families, and stomp on kittens!  Whodathunkit?

[sniper]