He also forged strong links with the Soviet Union and travelled there in 1962 to seek arms for Cuba's armed forces.
Peaceful demonstrators sometimes still appear on Syria's streets, but it has become an armed standoff, as more and more men seek arms to fight back.
Mr Chávez said he would seek arms in Russia and China.
He announced he would be adopting a more active role in seeking arms.
Assorted opposition groups that met in Turkey announced the formation of a national transitional council; some militant groups in Syria said they would seek arms in order to resist the state militarily; and other groups in Syria asked the international community for protection from the military retributions of the Assad regime.
In Istanbul, Syrians seeking arms who found their way to the Syrian National Council headquarters last week said they were promised money to buy them on the black market at home because smuggling them across the Turkish border was still considered a dubious proposition.
The men's lawyers presented evidence that Mr. Kassar had been a longtime source of intelligence for the Spanish government, and said that when Mr. Kassar was approached by men seeking arms for the FARC, he reported them to Spanish officials, and tried to learn more about them in order to have them arrested.
And when the "brokers," who unbeknownst to Mr. Kassar and Mr. Godoy were controlled by the D.E.A., came to them seeking arms for terrorists, Mr. Kassar reported them to the Spanish authorities, and continued to deal with them in order to learn as much as he could to have them arrested.
But what Mr. Kassar and the co-defendant, Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, did not know, Mr. McGuire said, was that the deal was an elaborate sting operation run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which was using informants to pose as brokers seeking arms for a Colombian terrorist organization.
Meanwhile, China's government has admitted that Chinese arms manufacturers held talks as recently as July with representatives of Colonel Gaddafi's government who were seeking arms and ammunition as his forces battled rebels.
