Daily News (New York)
June 6, 2007 Wednesday
SPORTS FINAL EDITION

ARMS TRIAL WITNESS IS AT HIGH RISK FOR SUICIDE, SHRINK SEZ

BY THOMAS ZAMBITO DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

FEDERAL PROSECUTORS want to forge ahead with their case in an alleged
international arms dealing plot without a key informant who a
pyschologist says is suicidal.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Cheryl Paradis testified yesterday in
Manhattan Federal Court that forcing informant Kelly Davis to testify
"would raise his already high risk of suicide."

In March, Judge Richard Holwell declared a mistrial in the case of
Artur Solomonyan and six others accused of conspiring to supply
rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s and surface-to-air missiles to
Davis, who posed as an arms dealer with ties to Al Qaeda terrorists.

The feds say Solomonyan, 35, of Sheepshead Bay, even boasted that he
could secure enough uranium to blow up a subway station.

Prosecutors say they can make their case without Davis, but defense
attorneys want to put the South African national on the stand to quiz
him about recent claims to doctors that he knew the defendants were
incapable of obtaining the weapons he was trying to buy from them.

Holwell will decide before trial whether Davis is capable of
testifying.

Paradis said she interviewed Davis, 48, at an undisclosed location in
the Southwest, where he was placed in the federal Witness Security
Program. She said the former safari hunter was distraught about
losing his wife and being separated from his family.

"When he talked about his dogs, he started to cry," said Paradis, a
psychologist at Kings County Hospital.

Davis lost considerable weight off his 260-pound frame, suffers from
panic attacks and, up until the past four months, consumed two
bottles of whisky a day while abusing prescription drugs, Paradis
testified.

Solomonyan’s attorneys, Seth Ginsberg and Louis Fasulo, joined
attorneys for the other defendants in suggesting that Davis is faking
his mental illness to dodge the witness stand.

Solomonyan asked Davis during a June 2004 conversation whether he was
interested in buying uranium and added that the "materials could be
used for train stations," prosecutors say.

The feds say Solomonyan and others also told Davis they could ship
hundreds of surface-to-air missiles and grenade launchers to New
York, Los Angeles and Miami from Armenia and Chechnya.