Weapons 'exporter' acquitted

A GERMAN court acquitted a senior Royal Ordnance manager yesterday of conspiring to export weapons illegally to the Middle East, writes Martin Himmelheber from Rottweil.

Prosecution lawyers making the case against Walter Lamp, managing director of Heckler & Koch, which manufactures high quality guns used by the British Special Air Service, said that they may press the case in a higher court.

It was claimed during the trial that Royal Ordnance, which now owns Heckler & Koch, had conspired to export machine guns to forbidden destinations including East Germany, Iraq and Nicaragua in the Eighties. At the time Royal Ordnance was state-owned.

Mr Lamp was acquitted because the court could not conclude that he was personally responsible for the traffic.

The court did conclude that the weapons had been illegally shipped via Britain.