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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (14691)	3/2/2003 2:47:20 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

Israeli held in US for smuggling missile parts By TOM TUGEND LOS ANGELES Israeli businessman David Menashe is being held in a federal prison here on charges that he tried to smuggle missile parts into the United States without declaring their proper value and contents to US Customs inspectors. Menashe, 52, managing director of Kam-Tech Systems, Ltd. in Tel Aviv, intended to transship the parts to China before his arrest in an undercover operation, according to prosecuting US Assistant Attorney Mary Carter Andrues. His lawyer, Donald Etra, said that Menashe is innocent of all charges and is a respected member of the Israeli and international business communities. Menashe was arrested February 12 in Los Angeles, pleaded not guilty on February 18, and his trial is scheduled for April 8. He is being held in lieu of a $750,000 bond, which, Etra said, will be posted shortly. According to the four-count indictment, Menashe and his company tried to smuggle Hawk Missile and AIM-9 Missile parts into the United States "by falsely representing the value and contents of the packages to avoid detection by Customs inspectors." He disguised the missile parts as "samples for evaluation" and undervalued one shipment of an AIM-9 Seeker Section by more than $19,000, the government charged. Etra was asked why Menashe would want to ship American-made missile parts back into the United States. He responded that as a seller of surplus parts, Menashe could frequently offer such parts more cheaply to the US military than could the original manufacturer. Kam-Tech Systems, Etra said, was established in 1971 and is licensed in both Israel and the United States. Andrues said that the import of the parts into the United States was not in itself an illegal act. Where Menashe ran afoul of the law, she said, was in not declaring their true value and contents and in planning to transship them to China. Menashe's wife Mathilde and daughter Revital have arrived in Los Angeles from Tel Aviv to lend their moral support. If convicted, Menashe could face up to five years in prison on each of the four counts. Previous article Next article jpost.com