Panama Jack
24th Jun 2004, 12:19
A British “mercenary” will plead guilty to conspiring to buy a fighter jet in an elaborate plot to kill a Colombian drugs baron, a court was told.
David Tomkins, 63, from Basingstoke, Hants will admit trying to buy the Vietnam-era plane to bomb a prison housing Pablo Escobar, prosecution and defence lawyers said.
He is due to enter the plea before the court in Miami next Tuesday, the lawyers said. He faces up to five years in prison.
Tomkins was indicted in Miami in 1994 on charges of attempting to buy an A-37 Dragonfly fighter plane from undercover federal agents.
Authorities said he had been contracted by rivals of the drugs baron, who ran the now-defunct Medellin cartel, which was blamed by the US government for smuggling huge amounts of cocaine into America.
The aircraft would be used in an air strike on a prison holding Escobar, it was claimed.
Tomkins allegedly gave the undercover agents a down payment of nearly £14,000 in December 1991 for the Vietnam-era plane, then fled the country.
Officials said Tomkins also sought to buy bombs and to obtain a Bell helicopter to survey the prison after the attack.
Federal authorities said Tomkins told them he was a mercenary and was to be paid £5.5 million by the rival Cali drug cartel to assassinate Escobar.
Escobar was killed in 1993 by Colombian police after escaping from prison.
Tomkins was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in September after arriving at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on a flight from London.
He had travelled to the United States to attend survival training courses at Fort Bliss, Texas, with plans to then travel to occupied Iraq.
Lawyers announced during a hearing on Tuesday that he would plead guilty next week.
Sentencing is set to follow in about two months.
Article (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3107639)
David Tomkins, 63, from Basingstoke, Hants will admit trying to buy the Vietnam-era plane to bomb a prison housing Pablo Escobar, prosecution and defence lawyers said.
He is due to enter the plea before the court in Miami next Tuesday, the lawyers said. He faces up to five years in prison.
Tomkins was indicted in Miami in 1994 on charges of attempting to buy an A-37 Dragonfly fighter plane from undercover federal agents.
Authorities said he had been contracted by rivals of the drugs baron, who ran the now-defunct Medellin cartel, which was blamed by the US government for smuggling huge amounts of cocaine into America.
The aircraft would be used in an air strike on a prison holding Escobar, it was claimed.
Tomkins allegedly gave the undercover agents a down payment of nearly £14,000 in December 1991 for the Vietnam-era plane, then fled the country.
Officials said Tomkins also sought to buy bombs and to obtain a Bell helicopter to survey the prison after the attack.
Federal authorities said Tomkins told them he was a mercenary and was to be paid £5.5 million by the rival Cali drug cartel to assassinate Escobar.
Escobar was killed in 1993 by Colombian police after escaping from prison.
Tomkins was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in September after arriving at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on a flight from London.
He had travelled to the United States to attend survival training courses at Fort Bliss, Texas, with plans to then travel to occupied Iraq.
Lawyers announced during a hearing on Tuesday that he would plead guilty next week.
Sentencing is set to follow in about two months.
Article (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3107639)