Ross Roggio of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced on April 15 to 70 years in prison for torturing an Estonian citizen in 2015 in Iraq and for exporting weapons parts and related services to Iraq, DOJ announced. Roggio was convicted in May of "exporting weapons parts and services to Iraq" without approval, shipping "weapons tools to Iraq," smuggling, wire fraud and money laundering. He sent firearms parts and tools and "illegally trained foreign persons in the operation, assembly, and manufacturing of the M4 automatic rifle," DOJ said.
World Trade Organization members, during an April 11 Committee on Trade and Development meeting, reviewed developments in regional trade agreements and ways to increase developing nations' role in the global trading system, the WTO announced. The committee noted that developing nations face challenges to participating in international trade, including "dependence on commodity exports and higher trade costs." The members addressed policy spaces for developing nations to boost industrial development, including under the WTO's framework of the Agreements on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, Trade-Related Investment Measures and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
The U.K. added three entities to its Sudan sanctions list on April 15, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation announced. The entities are gold exporter Al-Fakher Advanced Works Co., Alkhaleej Bank Co. and Red Rock Mining Co., all of which are accused of funding the Rapid Support Forces, one of the main parties in the Sudan conflict.
The Council of the EU on April 12 passed a law establishing minimum rules for the prosecution of "violation or circumvention of EU sanctions in member states," the council announced. Various actions, including working to skirt a travel ban and trading in sanctioned goods, will be considered criminal offenses in all member states.
The World Trade Organization's Committee on Regional Trade Agreements met April 8 to consider six regional trade agreements and discuss how to enhance the committee's functionality, the WTO announced. The committee chair, New Zealand's Clare Kelly, said that members agreed to include an "executive summary in the factual presentations, to be drafted and circulated under the responsibility of the Secretariat."
The European Commission on April 10 released an updated report on "significant state-induced distortions" in China's economy, the Directorate-General for Trade announced. The report will allow EU industry to "use the most up-to-date information on the Chinese economy and on specific circumstances of the market" when filing antidumping petitions.
The U.K. on April 10 updated its guidance on export controls covering military goods, software and technology by adding language to the section concerning disclosures and violations. The section stresses the importance of voluntary disclosures, and if an "irregularity" is found during a compliance audit carried out by the government, the "compliance inspector will have informed" the country's revenue and customs agency, "and you are strongly advised to do the same.
The U.S. last week transferred thousands of weapons and rounds of ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces that were confiscated from unflagged vessels en route to Yemen from Iran as part of a civil forfeiture action, DOJ announced on April 9. The shipment included "over 5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, and RPG-7s, and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sanctioned seven people and 86 entities, according to an unofficial translation of a notice released April 4. The notice said the parties were being sanctioned to "support proposals made by the Security Service of Ukraine," and added that the country's foreign affairs ministry should "inform the competent authorities of the European Union, the United States of America and other countries about the application of sanctions and raise the issue of introducing similar restrictive measures before them."
Former Venezuelan General Cliver Antonio Alcala Cordones was sentenced to 260 months in prison on April 8 for "providing material support" to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced. Starting in around 2006, Alcala Cordones leveraged his position in the military to aid the FARC, including by providing "high-powered weapons to the FARC." He pleaded guilty to "providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization" and transferring firearms with reasonable cause to believe they "would be used to commit a federal crime of terrorism."