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Mystery WMD-case twist
08/09/2004 16:59 - (SA)
Vanderbijlpark - Charges were dropped without explanation on Wednesday against a South African engineering company boss accused of trafficking in nuclear-related equipment.
The national prosecuting authority announced that all charges against Johan Meyer had been dropped.
Makhosini Nkosi, a spokesman for the authority, refused to explain the decision or confirm whether Meyer had been released.
He referred all questions to Abdul Minty, chairman of the South African Council for the Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, who has not yet returned calls seeking comment.
Meyer's lawyer, Heinrich Badenhorst, also declined to comment on the matter.
Earlier on Wednesday, lawyers for Meyer withdrew his bail application during a brief appearance at Vanderbijlpark Magistrates Court, and the case was postponed until October 11 for further investigation.
Officials said Meyer's arrest last week was part of international investigations into the network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme who admitted in February to passing nuclear technology to other countries.
Seized 11 shipping containers
Meyer, 53, was arrested at his Tradefin Engineering company in Vanderbijlpark and charged with violating South Africa's Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act and Nuclear Energy Act. He was not asked to plead.
He was accused of helping to supply equipment to Libya's now-abandoned nuclear weapons programme.
According to the charge sheet, he imported and exported a flow-forming lathe manufactured by Spanish-based company Denn without the necessary permit.
Police and other investigators also seized 11 shipping containers containing components of a centrifuge uranium enrichment plant and related documentation during a raid at his company, about 90km outside Johannesburg, said the non-proliferation council in a statement on Tuesday.
Meyer's lawyer, Badenhorst, said the items seized also could have benign uses. He maintained on Wednesday there was no link between his client and the weapons network.
Meyer was the third South Africa-based suspect arrested on suspicion of providing rogue states with equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
Men arrested in Germany, US
Intelligence officials fear the technology could end up in the hands of terrorists.
A suspect identified only as Gerhard W was arrested in Germany in August and accused of acting as a middleman in a 2001 request to provide pipes to Libya for use in a uranium enrichment facility.
A company in South Africa manufactured the pipes, but they apparently were not delivered to Libya, prosecutors there said.
Another South Africa-based suspect, Israeli businessman Asher Karni, was arrested in Denver on New Year's Day and accused of using front companies and falsified documents to buy nuclear bomb triggers in the United States for shipment to Pakistan.
- AP
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