Belgian held in Ala. to plead not guilty to charges of violating Iranian trade embargo

Belgian to plead innocent to breaking Iran embargo

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A Belgian arms dealer jailed in Alabama on federal charges of trying to funnel fighter jet parts to Iran once claimed to work with U.S. intelligence and said he served time for espionage in an Iranian prison.

Speaking in an interview with French radio, Jacques Monsieur depicted himself as more of a spy than a weapons trader.

“I am an unusual arms dealer because arms dealing is not my main activity. It hides another: Namely that for which I was sentenced in Iran, that is to say intelligence,” he told an interviewer from Radio France International in 2004.

Monsieur, who lives in France, was asked: “To be totally clear, you worked in part for the Americans, but not for American intelligence services?”

“That’s not totally accurate,” Monsieur, 56, said in the interview, conducted in French and translated by The Associated Press. “I had relationships with certain American services. But I prefer not to specify.”

A lawyer for Monsieur declined to comment Thursday on his clients’ dealings but said he would fight charges that he violated the U.S. trade embargo on Iran by conspiring with an Iranian who lives in France, Dara Fotouhi, to buy engines and parts for F-5 fighter jets.

“He’s going to plead not guilty at the arraignment,” said defense attorney Arthur J. Madden III of Mobile. “It’s an interesting case.”

A federal prosecutor didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.

A judge ordered Monsieur to remain in a Baldwin County jail, saying he could flee the country if released. He is scheduled to enter a plea during a hearing scheduled for next Thursday in Mobile.

If convicted of the most serious charge, Monsieur faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors claim Monsieur and Fotouhi are experienced arms dealers who have been working with the Iranian government to obtain military items. An indictment said Monsieur was seeking plane parts when he contacted a man who really was an undercover federal agent.

The charges were filed in Alabama because Monsieur and Fotouhi allegedly wired about $110,000 from a bank in the United Arab Emirates to a financial institution in Mobile for the purchase of the plane parts.

Under the U.S. trade embargo on Iran, such items cannot be exported to the country without permission of the U.S. government. Authorities say Monsieur planned to hide the engines’ destination by claiming they were being sent to Colombia.

Court documents show the investigation of Monsieur began as early as February, but the case was sealed until the arrest.

In the 2004 interview, Monsieur said he was arrested on espionage charges in Iran in November 2000 and spent about 18 months in a military prison.

“Spying for whose benefit and for who?” the interviewer asked.

“That’s what the Iranians wanted to know, and I told them as little as possible about it,” Monsieur said. “The Iranians made do with what I told them. The day I left, one of the big counterintelligence officials said to me in English: ‘We know very well that you didn’t tell us everything, but we have to accept what you told us and we’re obligated to let you go.’”

Associated Press writer Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.