http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-weapons-plot,0,1383704.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlinesMan Sentenced to 12 Years in Weapons Plot
By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press Writer
August 5, 2005, 2:47 PM EDT
MIAMI -- A man linked to an Islamic extremist group involved in a 1990
coup attempt in Trinidad and Tobago has been sentenced to more than 12
years in U.S. prison for trying to smuggle machine guns and silencers
from Florida to the Caribbean islands.
U.S. District Judge William P. Dimitrouleas imposed the sentence
Thursday on Clive Lancelot Small, 70, who was convicted in May of
attempting to ship 60 AK-47s and 10 MAC-10 machine guns with silencers
concealed in furniture containers from Fort Lauderdale to Trinidad
in 2001.
Many of the weapons were ultimately destined for members of the Jamaat
al-Muslimeen, which federal prosecutors described in court papers as
an extremist group seeking to use violence to create an Islamic state
in Trinidad.
<snip>
In 1990, Jamaat members bombed police headquarters, stormed Parliament
and took Trinidad's prime minister and its Cabinet hostage in a
rebellion that left 24 people dead. The rebels eventually surrendered
and were later pardoned.
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