DUBAI – A United Nations report accuses Blackwater founder Erik Prince of helping to violate an international arms embargo on Libya, putting the military contractor at risk of UN sanctions, according to a diplomat with access to the report.
The report by the UN Panel of Experts monitoring the ban on arms transfers to Libya says that Prince-controlled companies have provided three aircraft to assist in sending helicopters and military contractors to assist Russia-backed Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar in 2019.
The plan to send Western mercenaries to Libya has developed as foreign weapons and fighters entered the country in 2019 and 2020 from a variety of outside powers, including Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, deepening a conflict that has been ongoing since 2014, the report says, according to the diplomat.
Erik Prince. (Screen image from Fox News)
Mr. Prince is likely to be referred to the UN Sanctions Committee, which can order a freeze on his assets or a travel ban, according to the New York-based diplomat and a former official with knowledge of the situation. Permanent members of the Security Council, including the United States, Russia or China, can veto any potential sanctions against Mr. Prince, who does business with the three countries.
“Erik Prince had absolutely nothing to do with any operation in Libya in 2019, or any other time,” said a Prince spokesman by email.
“Erik Prince had absolutely nothing to do with any operation in Libya in 2019, or any other time.”
A UN spokesman said the organization had no specific comments on the Expert Panel’s report.
“It is the responsibility of our member states to ensure that sanctions are respected and enforced,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric De La Rivière.
The report itself was finalized and submitted to the UN headquarters in New York. It is unlikely to be changed before it is released to the public in the coming weeks, according to diplomats.
Prince, a former Navy SEAL, came to prominence during the Iraq war, when Blackwater provided private security guards to American employees and contractors who worked for the company at gunpoint from more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in a 2007 massacre in Baghdad. Since then, Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services and later Academi.
Prince’s financial and political ambitions have increased because of his close relationship with the Trump administration. Mr. Prince is the brother of Mr. Trump’s former education secretary, Betsy DeVos. In December, Trump pardoned the four Blackwater guards accused of the 2007 deaths.
Shell Companies
According to the diplomat, the next UN report says companies controlled by Prince sold three aircraft to people who sent Western mercenaries and military equipment to help Haftar in the first months of the commander’s failed attack on Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli. Launched in April 2019, Haftar’s attack on the capital plunged Libya into its worst fighting since the armed rebellion that toppled Colonel Moammar Gaddafi in 2011.
According to the diplomat, the UN panel report says that companies controlled by Prince sold three aircraft through a series of front companies to a Dubai-based company, Lancaster 6, which sent helicopters and a group of Western mercenaries Libya to support Mr. Haftar. The plan was unraveled and the fighters left Libya.
One of the planes, a Pilatus PC-6, was delivered to Libya for use in reconnaissance and intelligence operations for Haftar’s forces, according to the diplomat with access to the report. An American company, TST Humanitarian Surveys, controlled by Mr. Prince through a U.S. lawyer, sold the plane to another company in Austria partially controlled by Mr. Prince, who sold it to Lancaster 6 in June 2019, the diplomat with access to the report said. The plane arrived in Libya a few days later, according to the diplomat.
The other two planes, including an Antonov An-26 cargo plane intended for carrying helicopters, arrived in Jordan and did not fly to Libya, but were identified in the report as part of a broader plan to send military aid to Haftar.
The plan also involved several members of Mr. Príncipe, according to the diplomat and the former employee with knowledge of the situation. The operation was first reported last year by Bloomberg and the New York Times. So far, UN investigators have not directly accused Mr Prince of being involved in the scheme.
Helicopter business
Using funds from a Dubai-based company and a cover story involving a fake plan for geospatial research in Jordan, the team later obtained in South Africa three Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopters and three Super Puma helicopters. At least one of the helicopters was transported to Libya. The helicopters were purchased for a total of more than $ 13 million, a price well above its market value and which suggested that profit was one of the main reasons for the operation.
“This is basically a scheme in which they wanted to make money from purchasing weapons,” said the former employee with knowledge of the situation.
“This is basically a scheme in which they wanted to make money from purchasing weapons.”
The role in the efforts of Dubai-based companies also highlights Prince’s close ties to the United Arab Emirates and his ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed. Mr. Prince is linked to a series of mercenary efforts on behalf of the Emirates, including an effort to combat Somali pirates, according to an earlier UN report. The UAE has also been an important military supporter of Haftar, sending air defenses, armed drones, ammunition and airplanes to support the campaigns of the militia leader, according to several UN reports. Prince has visited Abu Dhabi in recent weeks, according to the diplomat.
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The UN report, the diplomat said, also accuses Prince of violating a UN Security Council resolution by failing to provide information on alleged violations of the arms embargo when contacted by the Panel of Experts.
In addition to appointing Mr. Prince in the report, the UN Panel of Experts must also refer Mr. Prince separately to the United Nations Sanctions Committee, which will make a decision on whether to impose an asset freeze or travel ban. implemented by individual countries, including the United States, said the diplomat.
Write to Jared Malsin at [email protected]