A British arms broker who arranged illegal deals to supply ex-Soviet surface-to-air missile systems to South Sudan and fighter jets to Libya during its civil war has been jailed for 16 years.
David Greenhalgh, 68, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday after being convicted in June of 10 counts of involvement in the unlicensed supply of arms between 2009 and 2016.
The court heard that Greenhalgh brokered deals involving AK-47 rifles, battle tanks and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, in what prosecutors described as a sustained effort to breach arms export bans for significant profit.
Greek national Christos Farmakis, 48, was convicted of nine offences and was sentenced to the same term, though he was tried in his absence and his current whereabouts is unknown.
Judge Sally-Ann Hales told the court the two men had repeatedly sought to breach arms export bans to sell weaponry for significant profits.
The South Sudan missile deal
Prosecutors said only one charge involved the actual supply of weaponry. Greenhalgh and Farmakis brokered the sale of a former Ukrainian S-125 Pechora air defence missile system to South Sudan — a “complete air defence missile system” acquired from Ukraine for nearly $55 million between 2009 and 2011.
Prosecutor Edmund Burge told jurors the pair had “very close connections to senior figures” in South Sudan, with Farmakis appointed as South Sudan’s “honorary consul” to Greece and Cyprus. The two discussed obtaining a Ugandan end-user certificate as “cover” to obscure the intended destination of the missile system.
South Sudan was still formally part of Sudan until it achieved independence in 2011, meaning the semi-autonomous region was subject to a British arms embargo at the time of the deal.
Libya, Iran, Iraq and Syria
The pair also arranged to supply weapons to Iran, Iraq and Syria in breach of arms embargoes, the court heard. Documents uncovered by investigators related to plans to sell fighter jets and other arms to Libya in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring.
Farmakis was arrested in 2016 after using his email address for his job at the government-funded Greater London Enterprise to privately arrange arms deals. His email account forwarded one message to his boss, which led the authorities to discover the Libya documents.
Greenhalgh and Farmakis had pleaded not guilty, and the trial — which began in April — proceeded in Farmakis’s absence.
Reporting based on Reuters (23 September 2026).
