The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has started an investigation against the head of a U.S. company that was involved in supplying refurbished Hungarian tanks to Iraq in 2005, the daily Magyar Nemzet reported on Friday.
Former Republican Senator Curt Weldon, who heads the Defense Solutions company, is suspected of brokering deals with the involvement of a Russian company to supply weapons to countries accused of supporting terrorists.
The Hungarian government donated to the Iraqi army 77 refurbished T-72 tanks in a transaction that also involved Defense Solutions. Defense Solutions paid several hundred thousand dollars to the Hungarian subcontractor HM Currus, a company belonging to the Hungarian Ministry of Defence, to refurbish the tanks.
According to the paper, the father of the owner of HM Currus, Istvan Fuzesi, set up companies with the involvement of Russian businessmen who were involved in arms trading.
In reaction to the reported FBI investigation, the Hungarian Ministry of Defence said it had no direct links with the Defence Solutions company, but only with the American government.
Hungary’s Defence Minister Imre Szekeres told Hungarian public television on Friday morning that the FBI investigation against former Republican Senator Weldon is completely unrelated to the supply of Hungarian tanks to Iraq. He said it should have been made clear back in 2005 that Hungary had only donated the tanks to Iraq and was not involved in choosing the company that refurbished them. The U.S. government paid for the refurbishment of the tanks, he pointed out.
