A British court has found a Libyan national guilty of masterminding an arms smuggling network to smuggle arms into Libya.
Abdul-Raaof Eshati admitted his part in a massive £18.6 million deal to smuggle arms and ammunition to Tobruk and Zintan in breach of an embargo imposed by the United Nations in 2011. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
On his cell phone, police found an electronic copy of an invoice for 1,104 tonnes of ammunition worth $28.5 million for delivery to Tobruk and Zintan. His phone also held a document about chartering a cargo jet for $250,000 for use in Libya.
Eshati had arrived in the UK in December 2009 on a student visa and applied for asylum just as his renewed visa was about to run out in 2012.