Keith Andre Claude: I'm no Gunrunner. I Was Just Doing a Favor For Friend
By Annan Boodram

A Trinidad man arrested in Fort Lauderdale in May in connection with a plot to smuggle firearms out of Miami said he is a drummer trying to eke out a living in New York and knows nothing about the scheme in which he's been implicated.
"I am a musician and that's all that I do," 45 year old Keith Andre Glaude told the Orlando Sun Sentinel paper in an emotional interview on July 19 outside the U.S. District Courthouse.
Glaude, 56, was arrested in a sting May 28, after accepting duffel bags stuffed with 60 AK-47s and 10 M-10 sub-machine guns with silencers from undercover agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The agents linked Glaude to the Jamaat al Muslimeen, an Islamic extremist group that tried to overthrow the government of Trinidad and Tobago in 1990.
Glaude was expected to enter a guilty plea on July 19 on two counts of weapons possession (possession of and transfer of unregistered firearms and silencers), which could have sent him to prison for as many as 10 years in addition to carrying a $250,000 fine. But the plea fell through, at least temporarily.
"I honestly believe the case will be resolved with a plea. We just have some intense negotiations that need to be resolved ... and others are involved," federal public defender Samuel Smargon told U.S. District Court Judge Wilkie D. Fergusson. Neither Smargon or Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Powell would discuss what the negotiations entailed, nor would they say who else was involved according to the Sentinel. But the Caribbean Voice understands that as part of the deal Glaude is asking that he not be deported.
Media in theTrinidad & Tobago have reported that their government and U.S. law enforcement are working together on the case. And the Trinidad government has indicated that it would consider initiating action against Glaude and Muslimeen official, Claude Small who is linked with this case, only after his case is completed in the US.
It would not be the first time Justice Department officials in South Florida have worked with law enforcement from other countries to try to dismantle weapons smuggling operations. Last year, the U.S. Attorney's office and the ATF prosecuted Irish nationals living in South Florida on charges they illegally shipped weapons and ammunition to the Irish Republican Army. And 10 years ago, some of the guns used by the Muslimeen in the 1990 coup attempt were eventually traced back to South Florida. U.S.-based Muslim leader Louis Haneef spent four years in federal prison after being convicted of helping to smuggle those guns.
That bit of history has made officials in Trinidad uneasy about this new case, according to media reports from that country. In January, Prime Minister Basdeo Panday told his country's Parliament he was fearful a plot to overthrow him was brewing, an allegation that was subsequently repeated by the head of the police force.
It is in an atmosphere of paranoia, Glaude said, that he is being used as a scapegoat.
In a Sentinel interview that brought him to tears at least three times, Glaude said he has lived in the United States for at least 17 years. He came here when his kidneys began to fail because the half-dozen pills he must take several times a day are either unavailable in Trinidad, or too expensive. He was in New York during the 1990 coup attempt, and has only been to his homeland for occasional visits since then.
"I was the most surprised person when I heard that the Muslimeen staged the coup," he said.
In the 1980s, Glaude became a Muslim and worshiped at several mosques where Muslimeen members also prayed, he said. But that does not make him a member of the Muslimeen, he told the Sentinel.
"I don't know anything and I don't know anyone," he said referring to the Muslimeen.
Glaude said he did not visit Trinidad from 1992 to 1998. During that time, he said, he converted to Christianity. In 1999, after recuperating from a kidney transplant, he returned to his homeland for Carnival. And he went back this past February, again to play drums during Carnival. During that visit he saw Lance Small, a long-time acquaintance. Court records connected with this case identify Small as a high-ranking member of the Muslimeen.
"He asked me to do him a favor and I did," Glaude said.
The case began almost a year ago after an informant who claimed to be a member of the Jamaat al Muslimeen, contacted ATF Special Agent Steve McKean. The informant told McKean that a high-ranking member of the group was in the market for weapons. For six months, McKean and the informant had numerous taped conversations with the Jamaat member, Small, and negotiated a deal to hand over the assault weapons to someone Small would send to Fort Lauderdale to pick up weapons, court records say. That person was Glaude.
According to McKean's affidavit, Glaude met McKean and SA Vincent Curry at a Hooters restaurant on North Avenue, Fort Lauderdale on May 29.
Claude told the Sentinel that he did the favor for his friend while he was in South Florida, visiting his 7-year-old daughter who lives in Miami. He told ATF agents he owed Small money and this favor repaid that debt.
"I was looking at the guns at this warehouse, I never took possession of them," Glaude said. "The guns belonged to the ATF people. I had no money. How could I be accused to buying guns? That was absurd. I was asked to pick up the guns and take them to the storage. That was all I had to do. What these people are saying about me are just lies," Glaude said.
"I know I did something wrong. I should never have gone for those guns. When [the ATF] told me the guns were for a coup in Trinidad, I started to laugh. But then I started to cry," he said. " I realized what they were saying and what they were accusing me of. The [ATF] knew more than me. I hear that I am supposed to plead guilty in return for information. What information? I know nothing."
Glaude who is currently on $150,000 bail with corporate surety will make his next court appearance on Sept. 4 before Judge Fergusson. He had surrendered his travel documents and a cousin co-signed the bond, according to the Miami Herald.