Pakistani get 18 years for trying to sell missiles to Taliban

A US court has sentenced a Pakistani man to more than 18 years in prison for conspiring to obtain and sell stinger missiles to the Taliban and the Al Qaeda.

Syed Mustajab Shah pleaded guilty last March in federal court to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin and hashish.

The 55-year-old admitted that he had tried to dispose off five tons of hashish and a half-ton of heroin in exchange for cash and four shoulder-fired Stinger missiles, which he and the other defendants intended to sell to Taliban members. Two others pleaded guilty to the same charges in March 2004.

Ilyas Ali, an India-born American, was sentenced in April to more than five years in prison for his role. Another accomplice Muhamed Abid Afridi received similar punishment.

Shah, Ali and Afridi were picked up by police in Hong Kong in September 2002 after tip off from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The three were secretly videotaped in meetings days earlier with undercover FBI agents at a Hong Kong hotel. Ali was also said to have met an undercover agent in San Diego in April of 2002.