Swiss charge 3 men in nuclear smuggling case

[kristopher]

Swiss charge 3 men in nuclear smuggling case

GENEVA (AP) -- Three Swiss engineers - a father and his two sons - have been charged with breaking arms export laws by aiding a Pakistani-led nuclear smuggling ring that supplied Libya's atomic weapons program, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The formal indictment follows almost a decade of politically charged investigation by Swiss authorities that lifted the veil on one of the most successful international intelligence operations to stop nuclear proliferation to rogue states.

Urs Tinner, 46, his brother Marco, 43, and their father Friedrich, 74, are accused of providing technology and know-how to the nuclear smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the architect of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, the federal prosecutors office in Bern said in a statement.

The A.Q. Khan smuggling ring sold key equipment such as centrifuges for uranium enrichment to various countries until its operations were disrupted in 2003.

Prosecutors said...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/international/news/20111214p2g00m0in066000c.html


The case involves the attempt to smuggle "centrifuge parts" for Libya. This is a key technology required to enrich uranium to produce bomb grade materials for nuclear weapons. Any country that decides to purchase a nuclear plant for civilian power gets full access to what was being smuggled and the right to build their own facilities for enrichment.

That's the path Iran is following as they take the next step in the developing Middle East nuclear arms race.

[PamW]

1. ...and it does NOT REQUIRE a nuclear reactor or nuclear power plant.

That's the path Iran is following as they take the next step in the developing Middle East nuclear arms race.
=========================================

...and it does NOT REQUIRE a nuclear reactor or nuclear power plant.

Fortunately Libya gave up its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003 when Khadafi saw what happened to
Hussein in Iraq. All the materials of the Libyan nuclear weapons program are now stored at the
Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge:

http://www.y12.doe.gov/news/report/toc.php?vn=1_1&xml=f1

PamW

[kristopher]

2. So what?

It may not "require" a country to purchase a nuclear reactor but purchasing a nuclear reactor is certainly an excellent route to getting the technology without having to buy it from smugglers. Why engage in smuggling when you can have Mitsubishi deliver it like a pizza?

[PamW]

3. You don't understand...

When you buy a reactor, you do NOT get enrichment technology.

In the USA, enrichment technology is classified and only the Government ( and its wholly owned enterprise,
the United States Enrichment Corporation ) has the enrichment technology. You can't buy enrichment technology from
General Electric, for example, because General Electric doesn't have it.

The USA and most nuclear power countries do not sell or license enrichment technology.

About the only company that sells components for enrichment is Siemens, and I wonder why the Germans permit that.

PamW

[kristopher]

4. Bullpucky.

The RIGHT to access to enrichment technology goes along with the purchase of a nuclear reactor because access to enrichment technology then gains the status of being a "sovereign right" by dint of being an issue of "national security" under the heading of "energy security".

Every group in the world that specializes in non-proliferation issues identifies the spread of civilian nuclear technology as being a force driving the spread of nuclear weapons technology and materials.

All of them.