Posted on 02/05/2004 10:19:08 AM PST by knighthawk
Malaysian police were investigating a company controlled by a son of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi over allegations that it was involved in supplying parts for Libya's nuclear weapons programme.
National police chief Bakri Omar said in a statement issued to "clarify several questions and confusion" that the probe was sparked by information provided last November by US and British intelligence services.
The CIA and MI6 told Malaysia's special branch that the company, Scomi Precision Engineering (Scope), was supplying centrifuge components made in Malaysia for Libya's uranium-enrichment program.
Scope is a unit of listed oil and gas firm Scomi Group, in which the premier's son, Kamaluddin Abdullah, is the biggest shareholder.
The intelligence revealed that five containers allegedly containing centrifuge components were seized from a ship, BBC China, in Taranto, Italy, on October 4.
The containers had a Scope and Malaysian police investigations confirmed that a Dubai-based Sri Lankan businessman had in 2001 contracted Scope to manufacture the components.
The Sri Lankan was named by the intelligence agencies as a middleman apparently used by the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has admitted selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
Scomi said in a statement that the contract to manufacture 14 semi-finished components for Gulf Technical Industries in Dubai was arranged by the Sri Lankan but it was never told of the end-use of these components.
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