Though the trial in Mannheim has received almost no attention in India, probably because of it was not hyped by western news agencies, its proceedings should be of considerable interest to India. Not only will it pinpoint the rampant proliferation that had taken place in India’s backyard but also the fact that a host of European nationals and companies were part of Khan’s nuclear bazaar, which Mohammed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, once described as ‘a veritable Wal Mart of black market proliferation’. The German trial should make non-proliferation Ayatollahs realise that it is not India but another country should be the focus of their ire for recklessly spreading nuclear weapons technology. The German court will be specifically examining Lerch’s role in supplying centrifuges, manuals and control systems to make a nuclear weapon for Libya’s Muanmar Gadhafi. Lerch denies all charges but he was alleged to have been paid $34 million for his services in assisting a nuclear black market from 2001 onwards. It was all going very well till German and Italian police intercepted a Libya-bound ship in October 2003, which was actually found to be carrying a cargo of containers fitted with nuclear weapons technology supplied by AQ Khan’s network.

The ship’s destination was surprising because by then Gadhafi had done a U-turn on his nuclear programme and announced that he would no longer pursue a nuclear weapons programme. But he disclosed the sources of the material and expertise that he had received when he was secretly preparing his country to be nuclear-armed. What surfaced were an incredibly elaborate network of global nuclear arms bazaar and the transmission of nuclear technology to ‘axis of evil’ countries.

An embarrassed Gadhafi told the US and the UK governments that the nuclear warhead designs that he had acquired came from AQ Khan. The Pakistani is reported to have been supplying even raw uranium to his clients since he had been ordering uranium in excess, presumably to meet the demand for his ‘export’ business. His dealings with Iran preceded his interaction with Gadhafi. Western media reports say Khan had supplied some old centrifuges to Iran but the Iranian scientists were able to ‘update’ them. After disclosures about his network, the father of the Pak nuke bomb was disgraced and in early 2004 had to publicly apologise for his proliferation activities. Since then, A Q Khan has been under ‘house arrest’ where about the only serious restriction on him seems to be movements within the country and a strict ban on his overseas travels. The military-dominated Pakistani regime has refused the US or any other outside agency permission to interrogate Khan and thus almost confirming the view that much of Khan’s undesirable and highly irresponsible activities were not without the support ( or is it sanctity?) of the Pakistani establishment.

Lerch was under investigation since the 1980s for allegedly misappropriating blueprints at a uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands, Urenco, jointly run by the governments of Britain, Holland and Germany. It was here that he had come in contact with AQ Khan. The Urenco plant was built to provide equipment to enrich uranium.

Khan had joined Urenco in the 1970s. After the first nuclear explosion by India in 1974, the then strongman in Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, had publicly announced that come what may Pakistan shall also have a nuclear bomb of its own, even if it required the people of the country ‘eating grass’. Khan helped him meet this ambition by running away from Urenco in 1976 with blueprints for centrifuges, the metal tubes which spin uranium hexafluoride gas at high speed to separate a grade of uranium 235 used in making the bomb. Of course, enriched uranium of a lower level is also used in generating electricity. In 1976 by when the Dutch police had become very suspicious of him Khan left for Pakistan. But not before he had made some useful contacts in Europe. One of them was a Dutch man called Frits Veerman, a technical photographer at Urenco. After reaching Pakistan and setting up near Islamabad a ‘research’ laboratory, Khan got in touch with Veerman with a request to ‘help us’ by sending details of nuclear work being carried out in the Dutch laboratory. Khan asked for fresh blueprints of centrifuges. Khan had grown confident that his contacts would help him get all the equipment and other necessary material from European companies to build the bomb.

It helped Khan that European laws on export of nuclear technology (some of which of ‘dual use’) at that time were not as strict as they have become now. Perhaps a more useful factor was that Pakistan was a key partner of the US during those days of Cold War and Washington had no interest in studying the long-term implications of allowing Islamabad to develop a nuclear weapons programme.

Another German, Gerhard Wisser, and a Swiss national, Urs Tinner, were also believed key parts of the Khan network of a shadowy global nuclear bazaar. A key element was said to be a Sri Lanka-born businessman, Buhary Sayed Abu Tahir, who had taken up residence in Kuala Lumpur after marrying a Malaysian woman. Arrested in the Malaysian capital in May 2004, Tahir was once described by President George W. Bush as AQ Khan’s ‘chief financial officer and money launderer’. Tahir was reported to have told the Malaysian police that Iran had paid $3 million to Khan to buy used centrifuge parts in the mid 1990s.

The trial of Lerch will not bring to light the names of all the prime figures in the Khan network because it is apparently more concerned about the role of the German and, may be, German companies. Its conclusions should, nevertheless, be of some interest to India as it may well shed some new light on the dark corners of nuclear proliferation.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

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