A BRITISH arms dealer accused of trying to sell a ground-to-air missile to terrorists, believing it would be fired at an American airliner, was charged with aiding terrorism and illegally importing arms to America yesterday.

Hemant Lakhani, alias Hemad Lakhani, a Londoner of Indian descent, was arrested in Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday after an elaborate “sting” operation by British counter-espionage agents, the FBI and the Russian state security service. He was attempting to collect a Russian missile he had smuggled into the port of Newark in a sea container marked as “medical supplies”. “This was a sample missile,” Christopher J. Christie, US Attorney for New Jersey, said after the hearing. He added that Mr Lakhani planned to import 50 missiles.

“This morning the terrorists who threaten America lost an ally in their attempt to kill our citizens,” Mr Christie said.

He would not be drawn on whether Mr Lakhani was acting alone in Britain, but said that the British end of the investigation would continue.

The arrests are being lauded by the American authorities as a significant success. Although no terrorists were involved, and Mr Lakhani was lured by undercover agents in New Jersey and Moscow, it is argued that his belief that the weapons would be used against American airliners is proof enough of his willingness to provide terrorists with arms.

Mr Lakhani, a dealer who imports everything from Basmati rice to saris, had no qualms about killing Americans, Mr Christie said. Mr Lakhani, 68, appeared tired when he sat handcuffed in an open-necked shirt in the Newark Federal Courthouse to hear the charges against him.

He said nothing when the charges against him were read out. They said that he tried to help and equip terrorists, which carries a 15-year sentence and a $250,000 fine, and that he illegally imported a surface-to-air missile, which carries a 10 year prison term and a $1 million fine.

A second defendant sat alongside him, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, who arrived in America illegally from. Malaysia on Tuesday, and is accused of handling a $30,000 down payment for the missile. He is also accused of trying to extract a $500,000 deposit for a further 50 missiles. A third defendant, Yehuda Abraham, a New York Fifth Avenue diamond merchant, appeared in the Manhattan federal court yesterday afternoon, also charged with handling money intended to buy illegally imported weapons.

The details of the investigation reveal a complex double “sting” operation which began in December 2001, three months after the terrorist attacks in America, when an unnamed individual told FBI agents in New Jersey that Mr Lakhani had told him he “could supply [HIM] various weapons, including anti-aircraft guns and missiles.” Posing as a go-between for a Somali terrorist group, the FBI source engaged Mr Lakhani in more than 150 recorded conversations, in which they discussed terrorist attacks on America.

Mr Lakhani is accused of saying that Osama bin Laden “did a good thing” and that on September 11 he had “straightened them all out”.

When Mr Lakhani asked who wanted the missiles, the source made clear they were intended as part of a “jihad”, targeted at a civilian plane. Mr Lakhani boasted that he could obtain 200 missiles.

On May 16, 2002, Mr Lakhani faxed the source a brochure for shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems. In August of that year, Mr Lakhani said he understood that the missile would be used for the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

On September 17, 2002, in a conversation recorded in an hotel near Newark airport, Mr Lakhani said he understood that the missile would be used against a commercial aircraft.

In October 2002, Mr Lakhani demanded an initial payment of $30,000 for the sample missile and settled on a price of $85,000 per missile. He told the source that the missile would be obtained from Moscow, and that it would be “high-class stuff”.

In July, Mr Lakhani and the FBI source travelled to Moscow, to make the final arrangements for transporting the sample missile from St Petersburg to America. They met agents of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), posing as arms dealers, who showed them a replica missile.

When the missile arrived in Newark by sea, Mr Lakhani and his wife checked in to the Wyndham Hotel at Newark airport where he was arrested.

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