Prague, July 29 (CTK) – The company Excalibur Army denied Friday the allegation that it was implicated in arms deals with Saudi Arabia, as claimed by a team of reporters who said that eastern European countries, including the Czech Republic, silently approved arms to the Middle East in the past 4 years.
The Middle Eastern countries then shipped the arms for over one billion euros to Syria, the team said.
The statement by Excalibur Army agent Josef Tymel was sent by its media representative Daniel Potocky to CTK Friday.
On Wednesday, the British daily Guardian wrote, referring to reporters from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), in which the Czech Investigative Journalism Centre (CCIZ) took part, that the eight countries silently approved the arms sales.
During a one-year investigation, the journalists studied information on arms exports, U.N. reports, weapons contracts as well as the movements of planes.
While doing this, they exposed the way in which the military equipment from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia are supplied to the Middle East.
It wrote that thousands of assault rifles such as the AK-47s, rocket launchers, mortar grenades, anti-tank weapons and machine guns were sent across the Balkans to the countries close to Syria.
CCIZ wrote on its website that Saudi Arabia has signed a contract on arms supplies with the Serbian firm CPR Impex of arms dealer Petar Crnogorac.
“According to the documents we have at our disposal, the Czech firm Excalibur Army also signed contracts with CPR Impex,” CCIZ wrote.
Excalibur Army has denied this.
It said in its press release that all of its deals were always legal.
Tymel said his company had been trading with CPR Impex between 2008 and 2010, when it was importing arms, ammunition and spare parts for the T-55 tanks.
“The only export contract was signed between Excalibur Army and CPR Impex DOO in 2013. We asked subsequently for an export licence which we withdrew shortly afterwords due to the cancellation of the contract. The deal has never materialised,” Tymel said.
Tymel said in the past years neither Excalibur Army nor Real Trade Praha had exported any military materiel do Saudi Arabia, in “which the territory was mentioned as the final user.”
