Sentence delayed over exports to North Korea
The sentencing of a New Zealand aircraft manufacturer for illegal exports to North Korea has been delayed.
Hamilton-based Pacific Aerospace has admitted breaking both United Nations sanctions and New Zealand law when it indirectly sent aircraft parts to the hermit state in February 2016.
The matter was adjourned because of a scheduling difficultly at Manukau Court yesterday. The judge scheduled to give the sentence was unavailable. A March date has been set.
In October, Pacific Aerospace pleaded guilty to three charges for the indirect export of aircraft parts to North Korea and one charge of making an erroneous declaration on a customs export form.
New Zealand Customs laid the charges after one of the company’s P-750 XSTOL planes was spotted at the Wonsan Air Festival in North Korea in September 2016.
The company was not charged with the exportation of the plane to North Korea.
A United Nations Security Council report from February 2017 – written by a panel of experts inspecting sanction breaches – included a chain of emails from January 2016 that showed Pacific Aerospace knew the plane was in North Korea, and planned to provide a replacement flap motor, tools and training to fix a problem with the aircraft.
The direct or indirect supply of aircraft, related parts and aerospace training to North Korea is a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718. The 2006 resolution is in response to North Korea testing a nuclear weapon.
Under New Zealand law, a company that breaches a UN ban can be fined up to $100,000 and, for making an erroneous declaration under the Customs and Excise Act, fined up to $5000.
Last Wednesday, Foreign Minister Winston Peters attended a meeting in Vancouver over diplomatic solutions to a North Korean nuclear threat.
Peters said the situation on the Korean peninsular was ‘‘very very worrying’’.