Arms to Sudan trade revealed

Britain has sent more than 180 tons of arms to war-torn Sudan in the last three years, according to the United Nations.

The revelation, which will embarrass Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as he visits Darfur today, is contained in the official UN commodity trade database, Comtrade, which compiles information supplied by national customs services.

During his visit to the Abu Shouk refugee camp, Mr Straw is expected to condemn what he described as the "atrocities" committed in Darfur by the Janjaweed, a militia sponsored by the Sudan government.

"I will impress on the government of Sudan the scale of international concern and the need to make full progress in implementing their obligations," he said last night.

But the weapons which, according to Comtrade, have been supplied by Britain are exactly the types which are being used by the Janjaweed in their campaign of rape, ethnic cleansing and murder. The Comtrade website shows that weapons weighing 184 tons and with a net value at 2001 prices of ?441,000 were imported by Sudan from the UK in 2001 and 2002.

The goods included parts and accessories for pistols and revolvers, arms and ammunition. Smaller quantities, including telescopic sights, were imported in earlier years.

The database gives no details of the manufacturer or precise specification of the weapons supplied, but given the quantities and values they were almost certainly small arms of the type commonly used by the Janjaweed. The Government insisted last night that it had not exported any arms to Sudan in 2001 or 2002, but said it was "continuing to look into" the Standard's discovery.

Foreign Office officials have spoken to their UN counterparts in Geneva and have been told that the data - from Sudanese customs - was correctly reported in the Comtrade database.

But a spokeswoman for the Department of Trade and Industry said that British customs had not been able to find any arms exports to Sudan in their own records and insisted that Comtrade's data might be "inaccurate".

Arms trade experts said a more likely explanation for the discrepancy was that the weapons were not themselves British, but had been "brokered" by a British arms dealer or company based in London, the world capital of the arms-broking trade. The profits from such deals form a vital part of the British arms industry but until this year they were unregulated by British law.

One leading London businessman - whose name is known to the Standard - is accused by many British Sudan experts and academics of being at the heart of the illegal commodities trade to the Khartoum regime. The man, who has lived in north London for many years, has served a succession of governments in Sudan and acts as a conduit for "strategic commodities", including chemicals and arms, through his substantial shipping business and a German front company. He is also understood to invest some of the regime's oil revenues in European companies. The man, whose involvement with convicted arms dealers in the Eighties on Sudan's behalf has been documented, is known to the British authorities but no action has been taken against him.

He is based in a well-known office building in a prestigious part of London and regularly attends seminars and conferences on Sudan, mixing with senior Foreign Office and Department for International Development officials.