Sweden Charges Israel Sold Arms to Iran

Israel sold millions of dollars worth of explosives, artillery ammunition and shell components to Iran through a Swedish middleman between 1984 and 1986, according to documents seized by Swedish customs police.

Customs officers seized several thousand documents in raids between 1984 and 1986 on the offices of Karl-Erik Schmitz, head of Scandinavian Commodity, a company in Malmo in southern Sweden. About 1,600 pages have been made available to Reuters.

Schmitz, who is awaiting trial on smuggling charges, faces up to six years in prison if convicted. He admits supplying Iran with explosives but says it was done legally.

“One of Schmitz’s biggest suppliers when trying to find material for Iran was obviously Israel,” a senior customs official said.

Arms trade experts believe that Schmitz smuggled explosives worth $600 million to Iran.

Israel has acknowledged shipping weapons to Iran with the approval of the United States in what has been called the Iran-Contra scandal but has officially denied independent arms sales.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir recently said, “It’s not Israel’s policy to sell arms to Iran, and we are not selling arms to Iran.”

One document seized by Swedish customs, an internal memorandum of Scandinavian Commodity, lists deals that the company had with Iran and the suppliers of each order.

State-run Israel Military Industries (IMI) is listed as the supplier in deals totaling $42 million. The sales were carried out in 1984 and 1985.

‘Very Important Evidence’

“This is very important evidence. We knew about Israeli weapons sales to Iran in general, but this is very specific,” said Aaron Karp, a military analyst at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute who specializes in the international arms trade.

Another document is a two-page summary of a meeting Schmitz held in IMI offices in Ramat Hasharon, just outside Tel Aviv, with three IMI officials on Feb. 13, 1985.

According to the summary, the two sides agreed that IMI would accept orders from the Swedish arms company Bofors, with which Schmitz was closely associated. The orders would state that the goods were bound for the Yugoslav port of Bar.

In exchange, the Israelis agreed to supply samples of empty 130-millimeter and 150-millimeter shells and several artillery parts.

“This looks like an exact shopping list for someone looking to put together artillery shells. All you would need was a screwdriver to put it all together,” Karp of the research institute said.

On his return to Sweden, on Feb. 15, 1985, Schmitz telexed an IMI official with an exact price list of what was agreed on. The total came to $120 million, and the list was an exact timetable for the supply of howitzer and mortar ammunition, ammunition for recoilless rifles and 200,000 complete 155-millimeter artillery shells.

“We look forward to your visit to Sweden next week for finalization of the contract,” Schmitz wrote.