Global Security Newswire

A British customs official was fired last month, years after he went public with grievances over the intelligence community's handling of the investigation into a Pakistani nuclear smuggling ring, the Press Association reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2007).

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs investigator Atif Amin told journalists in October 2007 that seven years earlier he discovered the network was aiding Libya's quest to acquire a nuclear weapon. Amin was the lead official in Operation Akin, which probed ties between British firms and the black market operation led by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The former official claimed he had been directed by the CIA and M16 to back off his investigation.

Khan's operation was not formally acknowledged until late 2003. Amin criticized M16 and the CIA for failing to expose the smuggling ring in a timely manner and thus potentially allowing the proliferation of nuclear warhead designs and technology to North Korea and Iran (see GSN, Aug. 4).

A Revenue and Customs official said Amin was fired for gross misconduct following his unauthorized sharing of confidential details on the Khan investigation with U.S. reporters, including the authors of "America and The Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise."

"We can confirm that following disciplinary procedures Atif Amin was dismissed for gross misconduct by the department in July 2010," an HMRC spokesman said.

His termination came to light when the Independent Police Complaints Commission said a probe concluded he knowingly shared sensitive details without official approval.

Amin was investigated for potentially violating the British Official Secrets Act after he told a co-worker of his media interviews. Commission officials determined the book described details which had not previously been publicized and tied directly to Amin's work on the Khan investigation.

The Crown Prosecution Service examined the case for nine months before concluding no charges could be filed against Amin (Chris Greenwood, Press Association, Aug. 23).

"The only thing I have done is to give an impromptu interview on matters that were already in the public domain," Amin told the London Independent yesterday. "Because of that I have been subjected to a lengthy investigation which was akin to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The investigation had no evidence against me, but yet I have now lost a 17-year career. I have been absolutely shafted. Yes my name was in the book, but I cannot stop people writing things about me."

Book co-author Joseph Trento defended the dismissed official: "It is absolutely outrageous that this man has been dismissed from his job for supposedly helping us to write a book. We never even met Atif Amin until after the book was published. He was not our source. But the even bigger outrage is that his evidence about the Khan network was ignored and therefore it was allowed to operate for a further three years" (Mark Hughes, London Independent, Aug. 24).