Swiss nuclear smuggling suspect claims CIA link

[Naveed Yaseen]

GENEVA (January 23 2009): A Swiss man suspected of involvement in the world's biggest nuclear smuggling ring claims he supplied the CIA with information that led to the break-up of the black market network led by scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. In a documentary scheduled to air Thursday evening on Swiss TV station SF1, Urs Tinner says he tipped off US intelligence about a delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons program.

The shipment was seized at the Italian port of Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. The 43-year-old Tinner is suspected, along with his brother Marco and father Friedrich, of supplying Khan's clandestine network with technical know-how and equipment that was used to make gas centrifuges.

Khan _ the creator of Pakistan's atomic bomb _ sold the centrifuges for secret nuclear weapons programs in countries that included Libya and Iran before his operation was disrupted in 2003. Tinner was freed by Swiss authorities last month after almost five years in investigative detention and he has yet to be charged.

Tinner's account echoes that of the book ``The Nuclear Jihadist,' by US investigative reporters Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins. Frantz says, based on interviews with well-placed sources in the US intelligence community, Urs Tinner was recruited by the CIA as early as 2000.

A CIA spokesman, George Little, refused to discuss the Tinner case. The agency has said in the past that ``the disruption of the A.Q. Khan network was a genuine intelligence success, one in which the CIA played a key role.' In the Swiss documentary, Tinner also claims he sabotaged equipment destined for uranium enrichment facilities so it would malfunction on first use. He does not say which country the sabotaged parts were destined for.

Former Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher told the SF documentary that he travelled to Washington in 2007 _ three years after Urs Tinner's arrest _ to discuss the case with US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Blocher says he refused a US request to hand over thousands of files of evidence in the case, but the Swiss Cabinet later decided to shred them after it learned they contained information that could endanger national security, including nuclear warhead designs.

On Thursday, a parliamentary panel criticised the government for destroying the files, saying there was no immediate danger to Switzerland's internal or external security. The Swiss government also refused to let federal prosecutors investigate whether the Tinners had engaged in espionage for a foreign state, a punishable offense.

Urs Tinner is waiting to see whether prosecutors will file charges against him for breaking Swiss laws on the export of sensitive material _ a crime that carries a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment.

The federal criminal court in Bellinzona said Thursday it rejected an appeal by prosecutors to keep Marco Tinner in prison pending a possible trial. Swiss weekly NZZ am Sonntag reported last month that prosecutors objected to Marco Tinner's release because of concerns he might still possess sensitive information on the construction of nuclear bombs. Jeanette Balmer, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office in Bern, refused to comment on the newspaper report.

Prosecutors can take their appeal against Marco Tinner's release to the Swiss supreme court. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said its investigation into the Khan network, which operated in 30 countries, showed some members possessed highly sensitive information.

``Sensitive information provided by the clandestine supply network to Libya, some of which related to uranium centrifuge enrichment and _ even more worrisome _ nuclear weapon design, existed in electronic form, making it easy to disseminate,' the agency's chief, Mohamed El-Baradei, told a meeting in September. He added the agency was concerned that some of the documentation may still be out in circulation.

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