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Nuclear Black Market Involved Businessmen Used by Pakistani Program, Officials Say
U.S. officials have said an international nuclear black market disclosed by a top Pakistani nuclear scientist involved European businessmen who were investigated in the 1980s for providing nuclear technology to Pakistan, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Feb. 11). Senior U.S. intelligence officials and outside experts said that several of the European businessmen used by Pakistan as middlemen during the development of its nuclear program are also believed to have aided Iran and Libya. One of the businessmen was Dutch national Henk Slebos, a friend of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who confessed to the network, AP reported. Slebos was convicted in the Netherlands in 1985 for attempting to sell equipment to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program (Matt Kelley, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 12). Meanwhile, the list of countries being investigated by the International Atomic Energy Agency for ties to the nuclear black market continues to grow, according to diplomats. So far, the list includes: * Austria, where a firm is being investigated for providing magnets that could be used in uranium enrichment centrifuges; * Belgium, where at least one company is suspected of having transferred nuclear equipment to Iran; * China, suspected with providing Iran with nuclear-related materials and other items; * Japan, where one company is being investigated for providing uranium enrichment-related equipment to Iran; * South Africa, where several scientists from Pretoria’s apartheid-era nuclear weapons program are believed to have provided expertise without government approval; * Spain, where one or two companies are being investigated for providing minor equipment to Libya’s nuclear program and * the United Arab Emirates, the location of Gulf Technical Industries LLC, which is suspected of being the headquarters of the nuclear black market (Reuters, Feb. 11). Malaysia today promised to provide the United States with information learned in the investigation of a local company that produced centrifuge components that were seized last year en route to Libya. A senior Malaysian official said, though, that U.S. President George W. Bush exaggerated Malaysia’s role in the nuclear black market during a speech on nuclear proliferation yesterday. “He’s overblown Malaysia’s role in this, the role of Malaysian companies in this,” the official said. “Making Malaysia the central conduit to this is misleading,” the official added (Patrick McDowell, Associated Press, Feb. 12). In South Korea, the government there plans to refer a local trading company for prosecution for violating South Korean export control laws by sending balancing machines to Libya in 2002, according to the Korea Times (Korea Times, Feb. 12).
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