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When experts from the US and the IAEA came upon blueprints for a 10-kiloton atomic bomb in the files of the Libyan weapons program earlier this year, they found themselves caught between gravity and pettiness. The discovery gave the experts a new appreciation of the audacity of the rogue nuclear network led by A. Q. Khan, a chief architect of Pakistan's bomb. Intelligence officials had watched Dr. Khan for years and suspected that he was trafficking in machinery for enriching uranium to make fuel for warheads. But the detailed design represented a new level of danger, particularly since the Libyans...

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 20 -- The Sri Lankan businessman who was an associate of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has told Malaysian police how Khan shipped components to Libya and Iran for their nuclear weapons programs and received two briefcases with a $3 million payment from Iran, a Malaysian police report disclosed Friday. In an insider's account of Khan's operation, Buhary Syed Abu Tahir said that Khan asked him to send two shipping containers of used centrifuges -- sophisticated equipment for enriching uranium -- to Iran from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, aboard a merchant vessel owned by an...

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20: The former head of Pakistan's nuclear programme, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, sent enriched uranium to Libya in 2001 and sold nuclear centrifuge parts to Iran in the mid-1990s, Malaysian police said on Friday. Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, 44, named by the United States as a middleman in an international nuclear trafficking ring, claimed Dr Khan asked him to send centrifuges to Iran in 1994 or 1995, according to police. Two containers of used centrifuge units were shipped from Pakistan to Iran via Dubai and were paid for with about three million dollars in cash and kept...

Malaysian police report implicates the Griffins John Aglionby in Kuala Lumpur Saturday February 21, 2004 The Guardian A British businessman and his son suspected of procuring blackmarket equipment to make nuclear weapons were instrumental in setting up Libya's weapons programme, the Malaysian police allege. Peter Griffin, 68, and his son Paul, 40, from Swansea but based in Dubai and France, supplied equipment, technology and helped arranged the training of technicians "to set up a workshop in Libya to make centrifuge components which could not be obtained from outside Libya" a 17-page police report says. It claims that they set up...

VIENNA, Austria, Feb 20, 2004 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Using technology and know-how acquired through the black market, Libya was able to process uranium into plutonium, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Friday. Diplomats citing a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency said the country was able to "separate a small amount of plutonium." The report did not specify the amount, but it appeared to be less than the approximately three kilograms (nearly seven pounds) required to make a nuclear bomb. The report was prepared by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei ahead of a board of governors' meeting...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold centrifuge parts to Iran for its nuclear program in the mid-1990s for $3 million in cash, police said Friday, citing the deal's middleman. Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, the alleged chief financier of an international nuclear trafficking network run by Khan, told Malaysian police that the scientist asked him to send two containers of used centrifuge parts from Pakistan to Iran in 1994 or 1995. Tahir also said Libya received enriched uranium from Pakistan in 2001, according to police. Tahir is in Malaysia and has been questioned by local authorities...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A Sri Lankan accused of being the chief financial officer for an international nuclear black market sat on the board of a company owned by the Malaysian prime minister's only son, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The connection indicates that alleged senior members of the network established by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, were able to woo partners in the highest levels of society. In the Malaysian case, the partners said they had no idea deals were being made to fashion parts that could be used to...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The hunt for middlemen who worked with the father of Pakistan's nuclear program to supply rogue regimes with weapons technology has widened to Japan and Africa, diplomats said Thursday. Suspects in Germany and two other European countries are also being investigated in the growing probe of the clandestine black market apparently headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan of Pakistan, they said. Also, Malaysia announced Thursday it would investigate a company controlled by the prime minister's son for its alleged role in supplying components to Libya's nuclear program. The company also has been linked to the international nuclear...