Topic: Monzer al-Kassar

Monzer al-Kassar (born in Nabek, Syria in 1945), also known as the "Prince of Marbella", is an international arms dealer. He was connected to numerous crimes, including the Achille Lauro hijacking and the Iran-Contra scandal. On November 20, 2008, he was convicted in U.S. federal court for dealings with supposed suppliers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Colombian guerrilla organization. He was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment.

His father, Mohamed al-Kassar, was a supporter of Hafez Assad, longtime president of Syria and father of the current president, Bashar Al-Assad, and was appointed Syrian ambassador first to India and later to Canada. Monzer al-Kassar had links to the highest echelons of the Syrian government.

Al-Kassar became an arms dealer in the "early 1970s", according to him, when the government of Yemen asked him to buy rifles and pistols from Poland for them (it is alleged that those arms were then sent to various terror groups). In 80's he was Commercial Attaché of People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in People's Republic of Poland.