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Sarkis Garabet Soghanalian ((アルメニア語:Սարգիս Սողանալեան); February 6, 1929 – October 5, 2011), nicknamed Merchant of Death, was an international private arms dealer who gained fame for being the "Cold War's largest arms merchant"〔"(Sarkis Soghanalian: The Cold War's Largest Arms Merchant )." ''Frontline/World'' (produced in March 2001). Retrieved April 10, 2007〕 and the lead seller of firearms and weaponry to the former government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.〔Silverstein, Ken and Daniel Burton-Rose. ''Private Warriors''. New York: Verso, 2000, pp. 60-61. ISBN 1-85984-325-5.〕 Soghanalian, then a permanent resident living in Virginia Gardens, Florida, was hired on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency to sell arms to help Iraq in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War.〔Kahaner, Larry. ''AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War''. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, p. 125. ISBN 0-471-72641-9.〕 With the encouragement of the Reagan Administration and the backing of American intelligence agencies, he oversaw the transaction of several significant arms deals, including the sale of French-built artillery valued at $1.4 billion. Besides Iraq, he also sold weapons to groups such as the Polisario forces in Mauritania, the Phalange militia during the Lebanese Civil War, to Latin American countries such as Nicaragua, Ecuador, and to Argentina during the Falklands War.〔 He extended his services to other regions of the world, including Africa. Prior to the beginning of the Persian Gulf War, Soghanalian appeared in several television interviews, explaining in detail the work he had done in Iraq, along with naming several top American government officials who were involved in the arms transactions. With this, the Justice Department charged Soghanalian for "conspiracy of shipping unauthorized weapons" to Iraq where he was found guilty and sentenced to jail.〔Interview with Sarkis Soghanalian in 2003. (Interview with Sarkis Soghanalian ). Public Education Center. Retrieved April 10, 2007〕 He was released several years later when he helped the Clinton administration unsuccessfully break up a counterfeiting ring in Lebanon. He moved his office from the United States and opened up operations in France and Jordan. In 2001, he was arrested once more by the US government on bank fraud charges but was released a year later after he revealed the weapons transactions deals were taking place between the CIA and Peru (which arguably resulted in the collapse of the Alberto Fujimori government).〔 ==Early life== Soghanalian was born to an Armenian family in what was then French mandate Syrian Iskanderun (now part of Turkey). In late 1939, his family moved to Lebanon to avoid persecution from the Turks. Due to the poor economic conditions his family lived in at the time, he decided to drop out of high school and joined the French Army and served in a tank division. It was from his experience in the military that brought him into the world of weaponry and, in his words, he "adapted to it from childhood and kept going."〔 Soghanalian later took up a job as a ski instructor in Lebanon, where he met and married his American wife. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sarkis Soghanalian」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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