Baba Jobe’s Associate Convicted For Arms Smuggling

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Baba Jobe’s Associate Convicted For Arms Smuggling

Friday, 04 November 2011 15:46

(JollofNews) - A former associate of Gambia’s former majority leader Baba Jobe is facing a lengthy jail term in the US for arms smuggling.
Viktor Bout, 44, was found guilty of willing to sell a vast amount of lethal weapons and ammunitions to the Colombian rebel group the Farc, which he knew could be used to "kill Americans" who were helping the Colombian government.

The shipment was to have included surface-to-air missiles, 20,000 machines guns, grenades, mortars, high explosives and 10m rounds of ammunition.
Baba_Jobe_and_Bout

Bout was a former Soviet military officer and international arms dealer nicknamed the 'Merchant of Death' and whose colourful life inspired a Hollywood movie.

Baba Jobe, 52, who died last week at the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital, was a close associate of Victor Bout.

During his tenure as assistant secretary Office of the President, Mr Jobe had used the New Millennium Airline, a Russian-made passenger jet acquired from Centrafrican Airlines, to cover the transportation of weapons and minerals by Viktor Bout in contravention of UN Security Council resolution 1343.

The two men were also instrumental in supporting President Charles Taylor’s regime in effort to destabilise Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds.

Both men were since 2001 slapped with a UN travel ban.

While Baba Jobe was banged up in 2004 after falling out with President Jammeh, Viktor Bout continued to live large using different passports to elude authorities. He was however arrested in Bangkok, Thailand in 2008 after a US Drug Enforcement Administration sting in which US informants posed as Colombian rebels.

Bout was extradited in August 2010 after a Thai court overturned an earlier rejection of an extradition request by the US authorities.

Prosecutors said Bout stood to make millions from supplying weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group.

Bout's sentencing will take place on February 8 next year and he could face a maximum term of life in prison.
Written by PK Jarju