Iranian national in U.S. sentenced in Iran missile plot

An Iranian national who pleaded guilty to attempting to export missile components and radio test sets to Iran was sentenced in Chicago to 51 months in prison, UPI reported.

Davoud Baniameri, 38, of Woodland Hills, Calif., was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayanin, the Justice Department said Monday.

"This defendant chose to be in the business of illegally exporting items to a state sponsor of terrorism. In doing so, he endangered the national security of the United States," Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said in a news release.

Baniameri was indicted in December 2009 with co-defendant Andro Telemi, 40, of La Tuna Canyon, Calif., a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran.

In July 2010, a superseding indictment charged a third defendant, Syed Majid Mousavi, an Iranian citizen living in Iran.

Baniameri arranged to have three radio test sets sent from an Illinois company to him in California, where he shipped them to Dubai for shipment to Iran, at Mousavi's request, the Justice Department said.

The department said also Baniameri attempted to purchase 10 connector adapters for TOW and TOW2 missile systems on behalf of Mousavi from an Illinois company that was actually controlled by law enforcement.

Telemi was released and is awaiting trial, and Mousavi is a fugitive believed to be in Iran, the Justice Department said.


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