S. Africa to Deport Dutch Arms Dealer Tied to Charles Taylor

Guus Kouwenhoven walks out of the Magistrate’s Court in Cape Town in 2018.Photographer: Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images
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South Africa has canceled the visitors visa of Guus Kouwenhoven, a Dutch businessman and convicted arms dealer, declaring him “an undesirable person.”

Kouwenhoven, who is residing in Cape Town, is wanted in the Netherlands after he was handed a 19-year prison sentence by a Dutch court in 2017 for smuggling weapons for former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor during that country’s civil war. The conviction was the result of a retrial following an earlier acquittal in 2008.