India Citizen Found Guility In NY For Attempt To Aid Hezbollah
By Jim Kouri
Patrick Nayyar, a citizen of India and an illegal alien living in New York City, was found guilty Thursday in a Manhattan federal courtroom of five counts related to support he attempted to provide Hezbollah, a radical Islamic group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State and Treasury Departments.
Nayyar. 48, was convicted after a seven-day jury trial before U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet, who will pronounce sentence on September 25, 2012.
Between July 2009 and September 2009, Nayyar and his co-conspirator, Conrad Stanisclaus Mulholland, agreed to provide weapons, ammunition, and vehicles to Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based terror group tied to the Iranian government.
During a series of meetings with a confidential informant secretly working with the FBI, who claimed he was able to deliver materials to Hezbollah, Nayyar and Mulholland agreed to sell guns, ammunition, vehicles, bulletproof vests, and night vision goggles to the FBI’s confidential informant, according to the indictment.
In total, Nayyar faces a maximum sentence of 75 years in prison. His co-conspirator, Mulholland, 45, who is not a citizen of the U.S. and resides abroad, left the U.S. before charges were filed and remains at large.
Earlier this year, the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence held a hearing entitled “Hezbollah in Latin America – Implications for U.S. Homeland Security.”
Iran and its proxy group Hezbollah continue to expand their presence in Central and South American taking advantage of their already close relationship with Venezuela’s despot Presidente Hugo Chavez, according to Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), the committee’s chairman.
There have also been intelligence reports that allege the Iranian-supported terrorist group Hezbollah, is also a dangerous presence in other Latin American nations. The ties between the two countries are based on several shared interests, such as access to military and petroleum technologies and avoiding international isolation, according the Meehan-led hearing.
