Bellevue man convicted on gun charge

A Bellevue gun collector once arrested as a material witness in the 2001 slaying of Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Wales was convicted today of illegally possessing a short-barreled rifle, a felony that will require him to give up his arsenal.

However, a federal jury acquitted Albert K. Kwan, 53, of another charge, unlawful possession of a machine gun. The jury deliberated for three hours following a three-day trial.

Kwan, who is not suspected of killing Wales, has been a person of interest because sales records indicate he purchased two Makarov gun barrels in the mid-1990s that were like the one used in the slaying of the longtime federal prosecutor. Kwan has turned over one such barrel but insists he does not remember buying a second one. Prosecutors said he failed a polygraph test about the second barrel.

Investigators who searched his home for the missing Makarov barrel in January 2005 seized several weapons, including a Winchester M-14 and a Heckler and Koch pistol that could be attached to a shoulder stock, making it a short-barreled rifle.

Kwan's attorneys argued that the M-14 did not qualify as a machine gun because it had been modified in a way that prevented it from firing automatically.

Felons are barred from possessing firearms.

Wales, 49, was shot to death in his Queen Anne house Oct. 11, 2001, while sitting at a computer in his basement. The assailant fired through a window from the backyard and fled in a vehicle parked nearby.