Monzer al-Kassar

Monzer al-Kassar (born in 1945), also known as the "Prince of Marbella", is a Syrian arms dealer. He has been connected to numerous crimes, including the Achille Lauro hijacking and the Iran-Contra scandal. On 20 November 2008, he was convicted in U.S. federal court as part of a U.S. government sting, for agreeing to sell arms to undercover agents posing as suppliers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Colombian guerrilla organization. He was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment.

Early years Al-Kassar was born in Hama and grew up in the nearby town of Nebek. His father was a lawyer and diplomat who at various times was Syria's ambassador to Canada and India.

According to U.S. authorities, Monzer's mentor in the drug and arms trade was his older brother, Ghassan, who had begun selling drugs in the late 1960s. Ghassan remained in the arms business until his death of natural causes in 2009. In 1970, al-Kassar had his first Interpol-recorded arrest, for theft, in Trieste, Italy.

In 1987, investigations into the Iran-Contra scandal found that al-Kassar had been paid 1.5 million GBP by someone in the U.S. government to sell arms to Nicaraguan Contras;

On 13 June 2008, al-Kassar was extradited to the United States of America for trial; he arrived in New York in shackles the following day. On 20 November 2008, he was convicted in federal court of five charges, among them money laundering and conspiring to sell arms to suppliers for FARC.

24 February 2009 al-Kassar was sentenced to 30 years in prison for conspiring to sell weapons to Colombian rebels.

A New Yorker article about the sting speculated that al-Kassar had been unusually lax in his behavior with the fake arms buyers, and that this may have been caused by financial desperation on al-Kassar's part, since, due to a decrease in world conflicts, the international arms trade was slower than it had been during the late 20th century. He is due for release in 2032.

Since 2018, he has actively posted on Facebook, maintaining that he is innocent of the charges against him, and accusing the DEA and the Mossad of falsifying evidence used to convict him.

Monzer Al Kassar, pro se and incarcerated, appealed from the District Court’s denial of his 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) motion for compassionate release. Al Kassar argued that he was at high risk of contracting severe illness from COVID-19 due to his chronic health conditions, which, he argued, was an extraordinary and compelling reason to release him. The District Court denied his initial motion, finding that the risk of contracting COVID-19 at the prison where Al Kassar is detained, USP Marion, was minimal at the time. Al Kassar renewed his motion three months later, arguing that conditions at the prison had deteriorated. The District Court denied the renewed motion, ruling that Al Kassar had established extraordinary and compelling reasons for compassionate release, but that 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors weighed against releasing him.