India:  Two U.S. Businessmen Win Appeal on Illegal Export Conviction

U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock last month voided the convictions of two U.S. defense company executives who had been found guilty of selling ballistic missile-related equipment to India without a license, the Boston Globe reported today.

Walter Lachman and Maurice Subilia were convicted in 1995 of violating U.S. export regulations by shipping equipment to India that could have improved its Agni missile (see GSN, April 7).  The two men faced up to 10 years in prison and $5 million in fines, according to the Globe.

At the time, the jury found that Lachman and Subilia knew they needed a license to export the equipment.  In a decision unsealed yesterday, however, Woodlock said he was persuaded by the two’s lawyers who had argued that even U.S. Commerce Department officials were unsure if the equipment was covered under the regulations.

Woodlock said that while Lachman and Subilia’s actions were wrong, they were not illegal.

“I have no doubt … that the defendants here sought — for their own private economic advantage and heedless of the national security interests of this country — to exploit imprecision in the regulatory regime for controlling exports,” Woodlock said in his decision.

Prosecutors said they were “perplexed” by Woodlock’s decision to overturn the guilty verdicts.

“We’re extremely disappointed,” said U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan.  “The jury heard the evidence with very specific instructions related to the meaning of the statute itself and concluded these defendants violated the act.  He knew they did it and what they were doing is wrong — that’s irreconcilable,” Sullivan said (Andrea Estes, Boston Globe, Aug. 15).

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