3 Indicted in Smuggling of Missile System to Egypt

A federal grand jury has indicted a Sacramento-area rocket scientist, an Ohio man and an Egyptian military officer on charges of exporting a sophisticated rocket and missile system to Egypt.

Named as unindicted co-conspirators in the indictment made public Wednesday were Abd Elrahin Elgohary, an Egyptian assistant military attache, and Egyptian Col. Mohamed Abdella Mohamed, who have left the United States and have diplomatic immunity.

Abdelkader Helmy, 39, of the Sacramento suburb of El Dorado Hills, was ordered held without bail by a U.S. magistrate in Sacramento after a prosecutor argued that the Egyptian-born naturalized U.S. citizen would flee to Egypt if freed.

Also indicted were James Huffman, 46, of Lexington, Ohio, and Col. Hussam Yossef of Salzburg, Austria, a member of the Egyptian armed services.

To Seek Extradition

U.S. Atty. David Levi said extradition of Yossef would be sought from Austria.

Huffman is a Midwest marketing representative of Teledyne, McCormick, Selph, a defense aerospace company located in Hollister, Calif. He was arrested Friday in Baltimore and was released on $250,000 bail Wednesday.

The trio is charged with money laundering, conspiring to illegally export munitions, obstructing and making false statements to customs agents and exporting 430 pounds of carbon fiber material, which is used to increase the payload and range of missiles and make them invisible to radar.

Some of the accusations were revealed in a criminal complaint filed Friday.

Helmy is accused of being the major U.S. operative in a scheme to smuggle material on the State Department’s list of munitions requiring license for export.

Militarily Valuable

The prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Atty. Tom Flynn, told U.S. Magistrate Esther Mix that the carbon fiber material is so militarily valuable that it could destabilize Third World hot spots, such as the Middle East.

He said Helmy’s alleged shipment of the material to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport for transport to Egypt was “authorized by Egyptian officials of the highest order.”

A crate containing 430 pounds of the material was seized at the airport Friday at the time of Helmy’s arrest in his office at the Aerojet Solid Propulsion Co. in suburban Sacramento.

At the airport, agents initially detained Mohamed, who claimed diplomatic immunity and was released.

Helmy, a recognized specialist in rocket propulsion, had received more than $1 million in a four-month period as payment for his part in the conspiracy, Flynn said.

Seize $600,000

Flynn’s office said more than $600,000 in cash was seized from Helmy’s banking accounts in connection with the money laundering charges.

Flynn described the evidence against Helmy as “overwhelming,” and consisting of 30 days of wiretap evidence, invoices for the purchase of the carbon fiber material and computerized records of his activities.

If convicted, the trio faces up to 95 years in prison each and possible fines of several millions of dollars, Flynn said.