FBI Says 3 Offered ‘Cluster Bomb’ Sales Plan to Arms Dealer’s Firm

Three Los Angeles-area men arrested on charges of stealing restricted plans for the nation’s most sophisticated “cluster bomb” weapons system tried to interest a company owned by international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi in marketing it, it was learned Tuesday.

The information was contained in a supplement to an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Rudolph Valadez in the arrest last week of Richard H. Schroeder, 54, of Diamond Bar; Anthony Cenci, 61, of Costa Mesa and Richard P. Nortman, 59, of Los Angeles. They were accused of conspiring to violate the federal Arms Export Control Act.

Based on documents seized by agents who searched Schroeder’s home, Valadez said Schroeder had advised Mohammed A. Khashoggi of Triad America in Salt Lake City that he had developed video presentations for two proposals.

“I know from my investigation of this matter that Richard H. Schroeder was in contact with Triad International in hopes of interesting Mohammed A. Khashoggi to market the CEM (combined effects munitions) weapon--also known as ‘cluster bomb,’ ” Valadez said.

Triad America is owned by Triad International, a company run by arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, a central figure in the Iran- contra scandal, according to published reports. Khashoggi has a son named Mohammed A., but it could not be definitely determined if he is the same person mentioned by Schroeder.

Agents reported finding a copy of a letter from Schroeder, president of Westland Group International, to Mohammad A. Khashoggi regarding plans to travel to Saudi Arabia, when they searched Schroeder’s files.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Modisett said that when agents interrupted a meeting at the Marriott Airport Hotel last week and arrested the three defendants, they were apparently preparing to fly to West Germany, then on to Saudi Arabia.

Modisett told U.S. Magistrate Venetta S. Tassopoulos at a bail hearing for Nortman on Tuesday that an expert from Aerojet, where both Schroeder and Cenci used to work, had said that recovered documents were sufficient, “in the right hands,” to build a cluster bomb.

The prosecutor said the government believes that documents on the bomb have been sent out of the country and may be in the hands of a munitions manufacturer in West Germany or possibly in Saudi Arabia.

The seized documents suggest the possibility that Saudi officials actively participated in a scheme by Schroeder, Cenci and Nortman to build the cluster bomb in Saudi Arabia.

Agents reported finding a notebook containing “agreements and proposals concerning CEM proposals with Saudi Arabia.” They said a storage cabinet disclosed “miscellaneous documents re Westland Group joint venture with Saudi Arabia government.”

The searchers said they found 10 letters to Saudi Arabia and two envelopes addressed to Schroeder from Saudi Arabia on top of a typewriter, and a shipping invoice, dated Jan. 1, for documents to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from Westland, in a desk drawer.

Schroeder told associates at a meeting, secretly videotaped by agents Feb. 4, that Westland’s CEM project had been presented to Abdulla Rahman, the second deputy of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense and Aviation, the government said.

Also in a storage cabinet, the agents said, they found “Letter & accompanying diagrams to Pres. of Iraq re CEM systems.”

Proposals to make the cluster-bomb technology available to Iraq in its war with Iran were outlined in letters to Commercial Counselor Yousef Abdul Rahman of the Iraqi Embassy in Washington on Oct. 27 and again on Jan. 18, according to the government.