Suriname: Lawyers for drug trafficking suspect Dino Bouterse, who on Friday was slapped with additional charges linking him to an alleged terrorist plot against the US, have strenuously denied their client’s involvement in such activities. Dino Bouterse is the son of Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse.“Mr Dino Bouterse is not, and never has been a supporter of any terrorist organization and never intended to render aid to such an organization. The charges alleged in the indictment were initiated, instigated and invented by the United States government without any involvement of any terrorist or cartel organization and are an insult to our client and the good people of Suriname,” the lawyers said in a press release.
“This case seems more about justifying a multibillion dollar national security apparatus rather than investigating actual terrorists and criminals. The government spent innumerable and valuable resources on snaring a high profile target completely unrelated to such activities and organizations,” the statement added.
According to Bouterse’s defence team, “Suriname is a peaceful South American nation, one of the more ethnically diverse and tolerant societies in the world with a long history of cordial relations with the US and its neighbors. Mr Bouterse’s innocence will be maintained at trial.”
Bouterse is represented in court by Richard Rosenberg, Michael Hueston, Florian Miedel and Jose Arrufat-Gracia.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara on Friday announced additional charges against Bouterse, claiming that earlier this year, in exchange for a multi-million dollar pay-off, he agreed “to allow large numbers of Hezbollah operatives to use Suriname as a permanent base for, among other things, attacks on American targets”.
“Today we add an additional charge of attempting to support Hezbollah to Dino Bouterse’s alleged crimes connected to a cocaine-smuggling conspiracy. We will be relentless in our efforts, working with our law enforcement partners around the world, to pursue and prosecute those who seek to support terrorist organizations,” Bharara said.
The unsealed superseding indictment alleges that “in furtherance of his efforts to assist Hezbollah, Bouterse has supplied a false Surinamese passport for the purpose of making clandestine travel easier, including travel to the United States”.
The indictment gives a detailed description of the meetings and talks between Bouterse, a co-defendant and men who purported to be connected to a Mexican narcotics trafficking organization, who also claimed to have ties with Hezbollah, but who were in fact confidential sources for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The meetings, which were audio- and video-recorded, allegedly took place in Suriname, Greece and Panama. Bouterse was arrested in Panama on August 29 and subsequently extradited to the US for prosecution.
DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart said: “Drug trafficking organizations and terror networks are joined at the hip in many parts of the world. DEA must relentlessly pursue these dangerous individuals and criminal groups that attempt to use drug trafficking profits to fuel and fund terror networks, such as Hezbollah. Alleged criminals like Bouterse and his facilitators pose a direct threat to the safety and security of the United States. Together with our law enforcement partners, DEA is dismantling narco-terror around the world and putting the criminals responsible behind bars where they belong.”
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