Published 11 March 2015
A New York court yesterday sentenced Dino Bouterse, the son of the president of Suriname, to more than sixteen years in prison for supporting Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’a terrorist organization. In 2013 Bouterse used his position and connections in the Suriname government to help people he believed were members of Hezbollah and who said their intention was to carry out attacks against American interests. In exchange, he was to receive $2 million – which he never received. The people who presented themselves as Hezbollah operatives were, in fact, undercover U.S. agents.
A New York court yesterday sentenced Dino Bouterse, the son of the president of Suriname, to more than sixteen years in prison for supporting Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’a terrorist organization.
Bouterse, who worked in a Suriname counterterrorist unit, had earlier also pleaded guilty to conspiring to import five kilograms of cocaine into the United States and to a firearms offense.
Bouterse said before sentencing that “what I did does not really represent my country,” and that his imprisonment would hurt his eleven children, ages two to 19.
“I really regret my actions, and I am deeply, deeply, deeply ashamed of myself”, he said. “I take full responsibility”.
The Guardian reports that the 42-year-old was arrested in Panama in August 2013 and extradited to the United States after a sting operation.
Assistant U.S. attorney Michael Lockard said the sentence reflected Bouterse’s agreement to “open up his country” to terrorist camps, and a need to deter other government officials “willing to sell access.”
Manhattan Attorney Preet Bharara said: “Dino Bouterse was supposed to oppose terrorism. Instead, Bouterse betrayed his official position and tried to support and aid Hezbollah, including his agreement to assist Hezbollah in acquiring weapons, and conspiring to import cocaine to the U.S.
“Today he has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term for those odious crimes.”
In 2013 Bouterse used his position and connections in the Suriname government to help people he believed were members of Hezbollah and who said their intention was to carry out attacks against American interests.
In exchange, he was to receive $2 million – which he never received.
The people who presented themselves as Hezbollah operatives were, in fact, undercover U.S. agents.
The plan was for Bouterse to help the operatives use Suriname as a base for the attacks. They discussed heavy weapons he could arrange to be surreptitiously transferred from the Surinamese military to the operatives.
U.S. district judge Shira Scheindlinsaid did not conceal her unease about the case, saying that the sentencing guidelines were “fundamentally unfair” in light of the fact that Bouterse appeared motivated by a desire to make “a lot of money” rather than help terrorists. She also noted that the sting meant Hezbollah had no actual role to begin with.
“Nothing in his history shows that he is a terrorist, or that he had terrorist sympathies,” Scheindlin said. “His greed got the better of him.”
Bouterse’s father, Desi Bouterse, came to power in Suriname in a bloody 1980, and remained in power until 1987. He seized power again in 1991, in a bloodless coup. Twenty years later, in 2010, he put together a political coalition which came to power in an election that year 2010.
The charges against him for crimes committed during his rule in the 1980s were dismissed in 2012 after his political coalition pushed through a sweeping amnesty law.
A Dutch court convicted him in 1999 for cocaine smuggling. Earlier this year a Dutch appeals court denied his third attempt to have the conviction overturned.
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