Global Security Newswire

Switzerland has freed the second of three engineers believed to have provided nuclear-weapon design details to Iran and Libya through a nuclear smuggling ring once run by former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the New York Times reported last week (see GSN, June 17, 2008).

Urs Tinner was held for more than four years before his release on Dec. 22, according to Swiss officials. He remains under investigation with his brother Marco and father Friedrich for allegedly smuggling the design details in violation of Swiss trade law.

Friedrich Tinner was released in 2006, but the Swiss attorney general called on Dec. 21 for Marco Tinner to remain confined due to concerns that he might still be able to obtain sensitive weapons technology. One relative said the family might soon learn the possible length of Marco Tinner's jail term, adding that the situation"has been very, very painful for a lot of people."

Andreas Muller, the case's examining magistrate, stressed in an e-mail that the younger Tinners remain suspects, but their "time served in pretrial custody became unproportional" to their potential prison sentences.

International proliferation officials and Western governments fear that design information found on the men's computers might have been transferred to customers of the Khan network or reproduced and concealed for future transfer.

Switzerland destroyed documentation related to the case in 2007, a move the country's president said was aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear secrets (see GSN, May 27, 2008). However, U.S. officials told the Times last year that Switzerland destroyed the documents to hide evidence of alleged CIA collaboration with the family (William Broad, New York Times, Dec. 30, 2008).