Gun collector fails polygraph over second barrel purchase

A Bellevue gun collector questioned in the 2001 slaying of Seattle federal prosecutor Thomas Wales has failed an FBI polygraph test about whether he owned two gun barrels that were the same type as the one used in the shooting, his lawyer said Thursday.

Albert Kwan agreed to the polygraph test last month after he was indicted and jailed in a different case for illegal possession of a machine gun.

His lawyer, Joseph Conte, of Washington, D.C., revealed the test result at a Thursday court hearing.

At the hearing, U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly released Kwan from custody on the condition that Kwan post a $250,000 bond. Zilly also ordered Kwan to wear a location monitor, not possess firearms, and surrender his Hong Kong, British and U.S. passports.

Previously, Kwan refused four times to testify before the grand jury investigating the Wales killing, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

FBI agents do not believe Kwan shot Wales, but want to know if he provided the gun barrel to someone who did.

Slugs and shell casings from the Wales crime scene show that the weapon was an Eastern European handgun called a Makarov that was fitted with a replacement barrel, the FBI said. Wales was shot to death in his Queen Anne home on Oct. 11, 2001.

FBI agents have pressed Kwan about his apparent purchase of two Makarov replacement barrels.

Kwan's lawyers have said he only recalls buying one barrel, which he turned over to the FBI and which has been ruled out in the crime.

But the FBI has receipts showing Kwan bought two in 1996 from the Minnesota company that makes them, according to a recent affidavit by Special Agent Ron Bone, lead investigator in the Wales case.

The lead suspect in the homicide is a commercial airline pilot formerly of Bellevue who now lives in Snohomish. Wales had prosecuted the pilot for fraud, but charges eventually were dropped.

Before the pilot moved from Bellevue, he lived only several miles from Kwan.

After Thursday's hearing, Conte said federal investigators told him that Kwan had failed the polygraph. Conte said he wants an independent polygraph examiner to review the government's test.

"It's our opinion that if you can't help the government, then they say you're not telling the truth," the lawyer said.

Polygraph evidence is generally not admissible in criminal cases because results are not considered reliable enough. Steven Clymer, the special prosecutor assigned to the Wales investigation, declined to comment.

Agents have tried to trace the roughly 3,500 barrels sold in the U.S. by the Minnesota company before Wales was killed. The FBI said 69 such barrels had been shipped to customers within 50 miles of the Queen Anne homicide scene.

Agents have not been able to locate and test about 30 of those barrels, including the one they are pressing Kwan about.

When Kwan was first contacted by the FBI in August 2003, he evaded agents, ignored a subpoena and provided misleading information about his travel and whereabouts, according to agent Bone's affidavit.

Kwan was arrested as a material witness in January 2005 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as he prepared to travel to China, Bone wrote.

The gun collector was held for 23 days during which agents searched his Bellevue home. There they found hundreds of legal firearms, including several machine guns. Federal agents seized an M-14 assault rifle they allege was an unlicensed machine gun.

Kwan was indicted in September on the gun charge. A federal magistrate ordered that Kwan be kept in custody as a flight risk and a potential danger to the community.

Kwan's attorneys asserted that authorities brought the charge to try to pressure Kwan into cooperating with the Wales probe.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com.

Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 or smiletich@seattletimes.com.