A British citizen has been extradited to the United States and charged with conspiring to illegally sell laboratory equipment, including industrial engines, gas masks and chemical warfare agent detection equipment, from the US to Syria.
Ahmad Feras Diri, a resident of London, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in November 2012 along with his brother Mowea Diri, a Syrian citizen, and an American, Harold Rinko.
He was arrested by London’s Metropolitan police in March 2013 and extradited to the US on Thursday.
The indictment from the US Justice Department alleges that Diri and his brother conspired with Rinko to export the equipment, which include portable gas scanners used for detection of chemical warfare agents, handheld field detectors for toxic substances, gas masks, stirrers, and industrial engines for use in oil and gas field operations, and a device for locating buried pipelines.
It also alleges that the three prepared false and misleading invoices that undervalued and mislabelled the goods.
“This extradition demonstrates HSI’s commitment to use all its resources to prevent sensitive and restricted technology from being exported to Syria through the black market,” John Kelleghan, the special agent in charge of the operation, said in a statement.
“No good comes of illegal exports to Syria, especially during this time of gross misgovernment and civil strife.”
