Nuke Documents Likely on Black Market, Experts Say

Nuclear analysts fear that nations or individuals looking to develop a nuclear weapon could find blueprints and other informational material on the black market, the London Guardian reported Saturday (see GSN, May 21).

The Swiss government acknowledged last month that it had destroyed up to 30,000 documents related to its investigation of three engineers — a Swiss man and his two sons — linked to the proliferation ring once operated by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (see GSN, May 30).

President Pascal Couchepin said the papers were shredded to prevent them from “getting into the hands of a terrorist organization or an unauthorized state.”  Reports indicated that the documents’ destruction occurred under pressure from the United States.  One of the brothers, Urs Tinner, is believed to have conducted work for the CIA, according to the Guardian.

“The Americans were involved in the destruction.  They were calling the shots,” one international official said.

One former high-level official with the International Atomic Energy Agency said he was “quite astonished.  It’s very unusual to see people destroying documents like this.  They should be put somewhere safe.”

That is not likely to be the end of the story, one expert said.

“We know that copies were made,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute of Strategic Studies.  “Both U.S. intelligence and the IAEA had been pursuing this with great urgency and diligence.  But what happened to the other copies that [Urs Tinner] made?  It is worrisome that there are other plans floating around somewhere out there.”

The material in question was reportedly collected from Tinner’s home and computers.  Tinner reportedly told authorities that he kept nuclear weapon designs in his office, according to testimony from the 2006 trial in Germany of another suspect in the Khan ring.  The information also made its way to Khan network computers in Dubai.

“It’s amazing these people had so much information, incredibly sensitive stuff on nuclear weaponization and gas centrifuges,” said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security.  “I’m sure the U.S. got a copy.  But who else got a document?  Can you believe these two, the brothers were the only ones who got the stuff?” (Ian Traynor, London Guardian, May 31).

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