A German businessmen appeared in court on Thursday charged with illegal arms exports to Iraq, according to dpa. The Iraq-born 47-year-old is accused of exporting 78 power units to the Middle East country in November 2004 in violation of an EU weapons embargo. The diesel-powered units were used by the German armed forces for the HAWK surface-to-air missile batteries before being discarded at the end of the 1960s. The businessman told the court he bought the second-hand equipment from the army with the intention of selling it for civilian use in the country of his birth. After obtaining an export licence, he sent the goods on their way, only to be told by the Federal Office for Export Control that the consignment was illegal. By then it was too late to stop it, he said. If convicted, he faces a fine or up to five years in jail.
