It was Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green party, who discovered that Pakistani arms manufacturers were actively promoting the sale of cluster bombs at their pavilion and that details were readily available for interested clients.
Retribution followed soon afterwards as organisers of Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEi) issued a statement saying, 'We have very strict laws in the UK about what kind of exhibits can be shown here. If they infringe UK law and exhibitors have been showing them here, we close their stand.'

A spokesman added that 'the Pakistan Ordnance Factory stand and Pakistan's Defence Export Promotion Organisation pavilion have both been permanently shut down after promotional material was found on both containing references to equipment which, after close examination, was found to breach UK Government Export Controls and our own contractual requirements. HM Government fully supports the decision by DSEi to close the stand and the pavilion.

'We are currently investigating how this breach of our compliance system occurred. However, we believe that the immediate action we have taken highlights our commitment to ensuring that all equipment, services, promotional material, documentation and anything else on display complies with domestic and international law.'

An English company, Sussex-based firm Beechwood Equipment, was likewise ejected after Amnesty International discovered it was displaying pamphlets advertising prohibited shackles and leg-irons.

It was the expulsion of Pakistan, however, that attracted the most international interest, probably because of the earlier publicity the country's stand had generated with its flamboyant display of gold-plated submachine guns.

Earlier in the week arms specialists from Islamabad were also showcasing other defence items, such as 'fashion body armour' — another way of describing leather jackets and waistcoats with reinforced linings.

Some commentators noted wryly that more deadly items, such as nuclear weapons parts, which used to be available to the highest bidder, were missing. They have remained off-limits ever since the US pressured the Pakistani authorities to arrest the notorious Dr A Q Khan.

What was left for interested buyers were relatively 'harmless' artillery shells, although these were easily overshadowed by the pièce de résistance represented by gold-plated submachine guns manufactured under licence from the German weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch.
A spokesman for Heckler & Koch explained how sometime in the past — in the 1970s — the German government granted Pakistan a licence to manufacture the 9mm weapon that has a range of 30-40 metres.

Each one of the gold-plated variety is available for a mere £10,000 (approximately Rs 7.5 lakhs) and their most eager customers — according to Pakistani defence salesmen, before they were forced to shut down their stand — are inevitably Arab princes from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states who want something a little different to give as presents to their friends and relatives.

These princes in turn got the idea of gold-plated weapons from the late Saddam Hussein, who started a trend back in the 1980s by gifting gold-plated pistols and Kalashnikovs to favoured friends and allies in his own country and the rest of West Asia.

Although the defence value of such gold-plated weapons is questionable — the consensus at the exhibition was that they are prestige/ceremonial items for display — they easily outshone more standard items of warfare on show from other countries.

These included Russian guns such as the AK 104, Israeli-made anti-tank weapons, or UK-produced air-to-ground cruise missiles which have been used by British warplanes in the Libyan conflict. Visitors were encouraged to look in on every site, enticed by slogans like 'Protect The Force', 'Attack The Network' and 'Defeat The Devil'.

But even more exotic arms manufacturers, such as Brazil's Condor company, which makes so-called 'non-lethal' weapons like the GB 704 grenade used for riot control, had been struggling to sustain the interest of visitors who preferred to make a beeline for the golden glitter they spied in the distance.

The nearest popular rival to the Pakistanis before they withdrew was the so-called invisible tank made by the UK's BAE Systems. It is described as invisible because of its ability to create a false thermal image of a van or a truck for an enemy wearing night vision goggles.

As for US defence giants like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics, they may have their order books full, particularly when it comes to missile technology, but, judging from the crowds at their stands, they too were obliged to work hard to attract interest.

India was also visible at the arms fair, although its presence was more discreet. DRDO, the Defence Research Development Organisation, exhibited models of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), recently ordered by the Indian Air Force, as well as the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) and the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), which attracted attention from Oman and South Korea. Foreign buyers from Slovakia earlier expressed interest in India's armoured personnel carrier (BMP2K). Private companies selling to countries such as Egypt likewise showed interest in India's small calibre ammunition and the 7.62 medium machine gun.

Tata Steel, which was separately represented, is involved in an extremely interesting project to produce under licence an ultra hardened steel called super bainite, which can be used for a new type of body armour. The British Ministry of Defence wants super bainite to be manufactured at Tata's plant in Port Talbot in Wales.

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