Xinhua, December 23, 2010 – The UN is sending a eight-man team to Nigeria in the third week of January over the arms shipment intercepted from Iran, a senior official has said.
The eight-man UN panel of experts on Iran will arrive in Nigeria tentatively on Jan. 18-21, for a three-day working visit, the official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.
The panel’s earlier request to visit Nigeria this month was not cleared from Abuja due to administrative reasons, the official said in the Nigerian capital on Thursday.
’But I can confirm to you that we have written them requesting that they choose between those two dates in January,’ the security source added.
The eight-man panel was appointed in November by the UN secretray-general to monitor states’ implementation of the sanctions against Iran.
A Nigerian, Maj-Gen. Ishola Williams, is a member of the panel, which is coordinated by Salome Zourabichvili of France.
Other members of the panel expected to visit Nigeria are Jonathan Brewer from the UK, Kenichiro Matsubayashi from Japan, and Jacqueline W. Shire from the U.S.
Also on the team are, Elena Vodopolova from Russian, Christof Wegner from Germany and Wenlei Xu of China.
The panel while in Nigeria will meet with officials of some key government agencies involved in the investigation.
They will also inspect the seized cache of arms.
Nigeria reported Iran to the UN in November after security agents intercepted weapons hidden among building materials on a ship docked in Lagos in October.
Four persons, including one Iranian, were arrested and charged to court over the seized weapons.
The weapons include assorted calibers of mortars and 107 mm rocket launchers, designed to attack static targets and used by armies to support infantry units.
They also include shells for 23 mm anti-aircraft guns.
The illegal shipment, which was heading for Gambia before they were intercepted by the authorities, was disguised as building materials.
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Odein Ajumogobia, at the recent ministerial news conference on the ministry’s scorecard, said investigation on the illegal shipment was still on going.
Iran is under UN Security Council sanctions, including an arms embargo, over its nuclear program.
The Panel of Experts, which monitors states’ implementation of the sanctions, would report on whether the weapons seized in Nigeria is a violation of the sanction.