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Prague Releases Suspected Lebanese Arms Trader Wanted By U.S.

February 04, 2016
by RFE/RL

A Czech court has set free a suspected Lebanese arms trader wanted by Washington in an exchange to free five Czech citizens held in Lebanon.

The Prague Municipal Court on February 4 ordered the release of Ali Fayad, wanted in the United States for arms and drug smuggling, as a Czech Air Force plane left Beirut with the five Czech citizens aboard.

Czech Defense Minister Martin Stropnicky told media that the five Czech citizens 'are returning home safe and sound on condition that Fayad will not be extradited to the United States. The cases are linked.'

His acknowledgement of the exchange deal, which is sure to anger NATO-ally Washington, was the first official comment on a case that has fascinated Czech and Lebanese media for months.

The affair, as complicated and full of mysteries as a paperback thriller, touches not only on Czech, Lebanese, and U.S. interests, but also deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and the Colombian guerilla group FARC.

At the center of the story is Fayad, a Lebanese who holds a Ukrainian passport and was arrested at Washington's request while visiting the Czech Republic in 2014.

According to Czech press reports citing unnamed security sources, Fayad is wanted by U.S. authorities for conducting smuggling operations across Europe and in Colombia. Washington accuses him and two accomplices, also jailed in Prague, of planning to exchange Ukrainian weapons for cocaine from FARC in a deal with U.S. agents posing as members of the Colombian guerrilla group.

Fayad has reportedly also served previously as a manager in Ukraine's state-controlled arms export company Ukrspecexport and prior to that as an adviser to Yanukovych, the former pro-Moscow president of Ukraine.

Intense Speculation

Until recently, Czech authorities had looked set to extradite Fayad and his two associates to the United States.

But the cards were scrambled in July when five Czechs, including a lawyer from Fayad's defense team, Jan Svarc, were allegedly kidnapped while visiting Lebanon. Lebanese media reported that the group was picked up in Beirut by a van driven by Fayad's half-brother, Saib Munir Taan, and that the van was later found abandoned in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border with no trace of its occupants.

Just why the five Czechs were in Lebanon has been the subject of intense media speculation in Prague.

The Czech daily MF Dnes has quoted unidentified official Czech sources as saying that Svarc was the intermediary for an offer by alleged Lebanese intelligence officers to provide information to Czech intelligence officials regarding the disappearance of another Czech national in Libya last year. The Czech civil intelligence branch reportedly refused the offer, but a journalist who is an expert on military affairs and considered close to the military intelligence branch accompanied Svarc to Beirut along with two reporters from Czech regional TV stations and an interpreter.

That could suggest that supporters of Fayad somehow orchestrated a hostage situation in which Prague could be pressed to make an exchange deal. However, such a scenario is just one of many being speculated upon in the Czech press, with no clear picture yet to emerge.

Fayad's defense team has said that there was nothing unusual about Svarc's trip to Beirut and that Svarc had visited Lebanon repeatedly to secure documents for Fayad's defense.

Czech media attention now looks likely to remain riveted upon the exchange and how the Czech government so abruptly reversed what had been its official position following the presumed kidnapping. The exchange comes a day after Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said: 'We don't make deals with terrorists. That is our long-term position.'

How Washington will view the about-face on its extradition request remains to be seen. One of Fayad's two associates was also released on February 4.

RFE/RL's Kristyna Foltynova in Prague contributed to this report

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/prague-lebanese-ali- fayad-released-extradition-us/27532663.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.