SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 2003
Germany charges three with attempted illegal shipment to N Korea
AP
BERLIN: Three German-based businessmen have been charged with attempting to export aluminum tubes to North Korea that allegedly could have been used in a nuclear weapons program, a prosecutor said Saturday.
The main suspect is the 57-year-old manager of a German company who was arrested April 9, said Eckhard Maak, a spokesman for Stuttgart prosecutors. The man was charged with breaching German weapons export laws by failing to obtain government permit for the shipment, while two Hamburg-based associates were charged as accessories, Maak said.
Judicial officials have linked the manager to a shipment of some 22 tons of aluminum tubes, officially headed for China, that was intercepted aboard a French-flagged ship in the Mediterranean at German government request around the time of his arrest.
German authorities believe the British-made tubes were in fact ordered by a North Korean state company, Nam Chon Gang, and could be used in gas centrifuges, which produce enriched uranium, Maak said.
The suspects' identities have not been released.
The main suspect is a manager from Optronic GmbH, based in the southwestern town of Koenigsbronn. Last month, the Stuttgart state court said he had appealed his detention on the ground that a Hamburg shipping firm, and not his client, had ordered the shipment. The court rejected the argument.
The businessman's claim that the tubes were for use in gas tanks in the Chinese aircraft was technically not credible and "it had to be feared that the tubes would be delivered on to North Korea and used in that country's nuclear weapons program," the court said.
North Korea's suspected development of nuclear weapons has been under intense scrutiny in recent months. The dispute flared in October, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a secret program in violation of international agreements.
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