PARIS - Israeli businessman Arkadi Gaydamak was sentenced in absentia Tuesday to six years in prison for his role in an arms-to-Africa scandal.
A French court slapped jail terms Tuesday on the main players in the network that smuggled arms to war-torn Angola.
Gaydamak was convicted in absentia for organising the 1990s arms sales at the trial that exposed a ring of corruption at the highest levels of Paris politics.
The huge Soviet-made arsenal that fuelled Angola's grim civil war included 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 anti-personnel mines, 12 helicopters, and six warships and was worth 790 million dollars.
Only six of the 42 defendants were acquitted in the trial dubbed "Angolagate" that began last October after years of complex investigations.
"Rarely have we reached such levels in the organisation and the dissimulation of criminality generating considerable profits," said judge Jean-Baptiste Parlos as the verdicts were handed down.
He described Gaydamak, 57, as someone who "behind the mask of worthiness... scoffs at borders, laws and justice".
The arms originated in the former Soviet bloc and were sent to Africa in breach of French law through a French-based firm and its eastern European subsidiary.
Despite a promise to come to Paris and explain his role, Gaydamak remained abroad and is believed to be currently in Moscow.
The court heard that he used his contacts in Eastern Europe to get his hands on the Soviet-designed weapons that were shipped to Luanda. He was convicted on counts of selling arms, influence peddling and money laundering.
Gaydamak has been the focus of criminal probes in several countries.
He purchase of the popular football club Beitar Jerusalem and basketball team Hapoel Jerusalem.
In 2006, he set up a massive holiday camp near Tel Aviv for residents of northern Israel fleeing rockets fired by the Lebanese Hezbollah the war in July-August.
Later that year, he also invited 1,000 residents of the southern city of Sderot on an all-expenses-paid Red Sea holiday so they could enjoy a respite from Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
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