|
Malaysia Factory Counters Nuclear Charges
EFL:An engineering company accused of supplying equipment destined for Libyaâs nuclear program opened its factory Friday to show how it could have unwittingly contributed to the international black market in atomic technology. Officials with Scomi Precision Engineering, whose majority shareholder is the son of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said the parts that the CIA alleges were produced for Libya are indistinguishable from components its makes for the auto, oil and gas industries. "To me, they were just normal parts," factor manager Che Lokman Che Omar said. "I have been using these machines for 15 years, and I have made many more difficult parts." The CIA and Britainâs MI6 informed the Malaysian government last November that they had seized centrifuge components in boxes marked with the companyâs name from a ship in Italy headed for Libya, authorities have said. Centrifuges are sophisticated machines used in a variety of industries to separate fluid components according to mass. They can be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons production. Police are investigating the Malaysian company and a middleman who arranged the deal as part of a widening international inquiry into a global nuclear black market triggered by Pakistanâs admission that its top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Weâve gotten enough information from Liyba and hopefully from Pakistan to disrupt at least part of this market. A spokeswoman for the company, Rohaida Ali Badaruddin, said the company did not seek to determine the end use of equipment it sold or check the backgrounds of customers. She said no export permit was required from the government to make the shipment. U.S. and European officials have told AP that the components from Malaysia were highly sophisticated and would have few uses except for nuclear enrichment. The company is a precision-engineering subsidiary of the Scomi Group, whose majority shareholder is Kamaluddin Abdullah, 35, the prime ministerâs only son. The company made "14 semi-finished components" for Dubai-based Gulf Technical Industries and shipped them in four consignments between December 2002 and August 2003, under a deal worth $3.4 million negotiated by a Sri Lankan middleman named B.S.A. Tahir. Ah, got a name of the Dubai company, bet theyâve had a few visitors going through their files. The CIA and Britainâs MI6 said the deal involved supplying centrifuge components for Libyaâs uranium enrichment program. Malaysian and Western officials say Tahir is an associate of Khan, the Pakistani scientist. I expected nothing less. Mr. Tahir is in custody and is reported to be co-operating. Posted by: Steve 2004-02-06 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=25719 |