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Home News Non-state Actors Three Swiss Engineers Charged With Aiding Khan Nuke Proliferation Ring
Three Swiss Engineers Charged With Aiding Khan Nuke Proliferation Ring
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Global Security Newswire, 13 Dec 2011.

Non-state Actors

Switzerland on Tuesday indicted three Swiss nationals suspected of violating export regulations by providing the former nuclear smuggling ring operated by Abdul Qadeer Khan with controlled technology and expertise, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 14).

 

Friedrich Tinner, 74 and his two sons, Marco, 43, and Urs, 46, -- all engineers -- are accused of assisting the Khan ring, which sold nuclear weapons technology and information to Iran, Libya and North Korea, the Bern-based Federal Prosecutors Office said in a statement.

"Based on the results of the inquiries, offenses of forgery, money laundering and pornography -- in the case of one person only -- were investigated. The criminal proceedings were further expanded to include a fourth person suspected of offenses against the War Material Act, although this person played only a subordinate role," the agency stated.

Swiss authorities said the accused proliferators have decided to seek an abbreviated judicial process that is more likely to keep politically delicate aspects of the case out of the public forum. The fourth suspect is to face a separate case on violating Swiss weapons export controls, authorities said.

In 2009, Urs Tinner asserted to a Swiss broadcaster he had informed the CIA that Libya was due to receive uranium enrichment centrifuge components through the Khan ring. The components were confiscated in 2003 at the Taranto port in Italy, leading Tripoli to acknowledge it was the planned buyer. Libya that year renounced its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

The CIA has not offered any response to the investigation of the Tinners. Previously, the U.S. intelligence agency said "the disruption of the A.Q. Khan network was a genuine intelligence success, one in which the CIA played a key role."

The Federal Prosecutors Office said the issue of whether the Tinners were CIA informants has still not been put to rest as Bern has rejected a request to launch a criminal probe into the matter.

Four years ago, Bern directed that case material be eliminated on national security grounds. That revelation sparked public anger in the country and the Swiss government was criticized in some corners as bowing to the demands of the United States.

Swiss legal officials said they were able to retrieve some copies of destroyed records but that others, including all digital files, were "definitely lost" (Frank Jordans, Associated Press/Google News, Dec. 13).

Prosecutors said they were pursuing shortened legal proceedings at the request of the Tinners, Agence France-Presse reported.

"In the indictment, the accused and the (Office of the Attorney General) request that the court return verdicts of guilty in relation to offenses under the War Material Act and against one of the sons for forgery of documents," the statement read (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Dec. 13).

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said it was probable the engineers would not have to spend any more time behind bars (Institute for Science and International Security release, Dec. 13).

 

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