Gerald Bull; Canadian Arms Dealer, Weapons Designer

Gerald Bull, 62, a Canadian-born arms dealer and weapons designer, once described as Canada’s boy genius of rocket science by Maclean’s magazine. He was the youngest person, at 22, to earn a doctorate from the University of Toronto. Bull was convicted in Vermont in 1980 on charges of smuggling arms to South Africa. He also had extensive business dealings with China, the Canadian news agency Southam News reported. He had been working more recently with Iraq to help it develop advanced weapons systems that were used in the Iran-Iraq War, the Ottawa-based news agency said. In Brussels, where he was mysteriously shot to death while entering his apartment, on March 22.