| 19.03.200613:32 (GMT) | Belarus moved closer to international isolation yesterday after the White House submitted a largely classified report to Congress accusing the country's president of illegally selling weapons to Iran, Telegraph reports. The report, prepared on the eve of an election in Belarus widely denounced as a sham, comes amid condemnation of a brutal crackdown on his opponents by President Alexander Lukashenko, labelled Europe's last dictator by the Bush administration. According to United States officials, the report accuses the 51-year-old president of turning himself into "one of the richest men in the former Soviet Union", through arms sales to rogue regimes and African rebel outfits. "We spelt out some of the concerns when it comes to Belarus," said a White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, confirming the existence of the report. "This is one country in a Europe that is free and at peace that has moved in the opposite direction of freedom and peace." Western diplomats say that Belarus earns more than £1.14 billion annually in weapons sales, much of which goes into a secret fund controlled directly by the president. An official, who read the report, says it alleges that the Belarussian government sold arms, dual-use items, and even components that could be used in weapons of mass destruction, to Iran.
The report asserts that military hardware was also sold to the Sudanese government, which has waged a brutal campaign against rebels in the Darfur region, that has forced more than a million people to flee their homes.
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