Dealer Says Gun Linked to Paris Attack Came Via US

'Zastava cannot be blamed for where it went afterward'

In this June 28, 2011, file photo, a visitor looks at rifles made by the Serbian company Zastava Arms, during a defense fair, in Belgrade, Serbia. The head of a Serbian arms factory, Milojko Brzakovic, director of the Zastava factory, says several weapons used by Islamic militants during the Paris attacks have been identified as produced by his company in the early 1990s. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)

BELGRADE, Serbia  — One of the guns linked to Islamic militants in the Paris attacks that killed 130 people was exported to the United States in 2013, the head of a Serbian arms factory said Thursday.

Milojko Brzakovic of the Zastava arms factory told The Associated Press that the M92 semi-automatic pistol’s serial number matched one his company delivered to an American online arms dealer in May 2013. It was not clear how the gun got back to Europe.

The Zastava M92 (Photo: Srđan Popović / Creative Commons)

Swiss police officers patrol around the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

Brzakovic insisted that all arms exports from Serbia are under strict government control.

“We submit a request to our government to give consent and authorize the export. Until we receive that, we make no contract. Once we get a permission to export, we make a contract and arrange the dynamics,” he said.

A web of rules and a large U.S. bureaucracy oversee the legal import and export of weapons like the Serbian M92 semi-automatic pistol.

American government approval is required to import firearms into the U.S.

To legally ship firearms back out, the individual or company would have to be registered with the State Department, which controls items covered by the U.S. Munitions List. An export request is submitted to State and a decision to grant the request is based on a variety of factors, including the type of weapon and its eventual destination.

Individual weapons are not tracked by serial numbers unless a single weapon is being exported, according to the State Department. The U.S. does not make publicly available the names of licensed weapons exporters as that information is considered proprietary.

This undated photograph provided by Belgian Federal Police shows Mohamed Abrini who is wanted by police in connection with recent attacks in Paris, as a police investigation continues on Tuesday Nov. 24, 2015. The federal prosecutor's office on Tuesday issued an international warrant for Mohamed Abrini, who is being tracked by both Belgian and French police. Authorities are looking for Abrini because he was seen with fugitive Salah Abdeslam at a gasoline station in Ressons on the highway to Paris two days before the attacks. (Belgian Federal Police via AP)

Brzakovic said it would be wrong to accuse Zastava of selling weapons to terrorists.

“Here’s where the weapons ended, there’s the data. Zastava cannot be blamed for where it went afterward,” Brzakovic said.

But he agreed that an illicit gun deal could have taken place even after arms were delivered legally.

“Wherever there are wars, there are bigger possibilities for abuse and to hide the channels for guns. They end up where they shouldn’t,” he said, adding: “We have a data base in the factory for the last 50 years, we know where a gun has been delivered.”