US senator pleads not guilty to corruption, gun smuggling

WASHINGTON – California Sen. Leland Yee pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to federal charges of political corruption and conspiracy to traffic firearms from the Philippines.

If convicted, the San Francisco Democrat could be sent to jail for the rest of his life.

News reports said Yee was brought down in an FBI sting operation.

Federal authorities alleged Yee spent campaign donations to travel to the Philippines in 2008 and 2012 to coordinate a gunrunning operation after he was introduced to an undercover agent posing as a buyer of military-style firearms.

Yee and 28 others were formally indicted last week after a five-year investigation into a San Francisco Chinatown crime ring that authorities said was involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and gunrunning.

Based on reports, Yee, who had authored gun control legislation, asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker with links to Filipino Muslim guerillas.

US investigators said Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder-fired missiles.

In an affidavit, FBI agent Emmanuel Pascua talked of how Yee explained the entire process of acquiring weapons from a Philippine military captain and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and bringing the firearms to the US.

Yee, who posted a $500,000 bond, has been suspended from the legislature following his arrest.

In Manila, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has started looking into the reported arms trafficking involving Yee and an unnamed military captain with a faction of the MILF.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the NBI has started doing “some verifications” on the admission by supposed arms buyer that some from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were routinely selling weapons to rebels and other armed groups.

“Of course it is something that interests us, that’s why we are verifying certain facts, certain information as narrated in that news item,” she said.

De Lima said the NBI has taken the initiative to probe the report even in the absence of an official request from the US government.

“Whether or not there is an official US request, we felt that it is important to us also to try to verify, especially the supposed travel of that US senator here in the Philippines,” she explained.

De Lima revealed the NBI has found out that Yee traveled to the country once.

“We know exactly the month, year and the dates. But I cannot be disclosing those details... The most we can do is make a discreet check,” she said. – With Edu Punay