KH 55
Posted on 04/09/2005 9:23:07 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
U.S. Says Banned Nuclear Technology Went to Pakistan and India
By DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, April 8 - Federal prosecutors investigating the smuggling of nuclear technology disclosed Friday that a South African businessman had pleaded guilty to arranging illegal exports of American-made equipment both to Pakistan and its regional rival, India.
Asher Karni, an Israeli who lives in South Africa, entered the guilty plea last September and has been cooperating with investigators, prosecutors said. The prosecutors, however, kept the proceeding secret until Friday, when they unsealed the plea agreement and charges brought against Humayun Khan, an Islamabad businessman with longstanding ties to Pakistan's military. Mr. Khan is said to be Mr. Karni's partner.
As part of Mr. Karni's plea agreement, he acknowledged that he also was involved in 2002 in selling sophisticated electronic equipment to government agencies in India, some of which are involved in nuclear weapons and missile research. It is not clear whether the goods he sold were useful for making nuclear weapons.
The indictment of Mr. Khan states that he employed Mr. Karni in 2002 and 2003 to buy 200 high-speed electrical switches that can be used in a nuclear device, as well as oscilloscopes, and to export them to Pakistan without the required United States export licenses. The switches, known as triggered spark gaps, are used in medical equipment but also have military applications, including as detonators for nuclear weapons, the prosecutors said. Mr. Khan is believed to be in Pakistan and a Pakistani Embassy official said he was unaware of an American request to have him detained. Efforts to reach Mr. Khan were unsuccessful.
A senior Commerce Department official said Friday that, with Mr. Karni's help, the investigation had turned up indications that Mr. Khan was involved in sales of nuclear-related technology to countries other than Pakistan using a network of suppliers and middlemen similar to that used by A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who confessed in 2004 to providing nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea for more than a decade. The two Mr. Khans are not believed to be related, officials said.
"Humayun Khan is a black marketeer involved in the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and once this is all spelled out we're going to see the same scale of network that A.Q. Khan was involved in," said the Commerce Department official.
Mohammad Sadiq, the deputy chief of mission at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, denied that Humayun Khan was involved in procuring triggers or other equipment for its nuclear program.
Mr. Karni, the Israeli businessman who worked with Mr. Khan, was arrested in Denver in 2004 after traveling to the United States with his family for a vacation. Mr. Karni ran a company called Top-Cape Technology from Cape Town, South Africa.
Mr. Karni's relationship with Mr. Khan began in 2002 when the Pakistani asked him to buy an oscilloscope manufactured by Tektronix Incorporated of Beaverton, Ore., according to the documents released Friday. Such devices display graphs of electric signals and have numerous applications, including in weapons research. He warned Mr. Karni to "approach these cases carefully as all items are controlled," according to an e-mail message quoted in Mr. Khan's indictment, which says that Mr. Karni eventually shipped three oscilloscopes to Pakistani companies that were clients of Mr. Khan's.
In 2003, Mr. Khan sent an e-mail message seeking triggered spark gaps and advising Mr. Khan not to "disclose the end destination." In July of that year, an unnamed informant tipped off Commerce Department and customs agents about Mr. Karni's activities.
Ping!
Ping.
Chairs get kicked in Jerusalem as Asher talks : )
Israel deserves our loyalty and moral support as the only legitimate regime in the middle east...at least until Iraq. But they are way over the line in terms of taking advantage of the friendship. It is one thing to support them. It is quite another to let them sell our missile technology to the Chi-coms and now possibly nuke related maerial to India Pakistan.
No way Jose Karni shuffles around the globe and Mossad misses that.
Its one thing to run a sting ...its another to feed critical components ...and use the track to gain further access inside.
One wonders if Karni is part of A.Q. Khans decade plus nuke shell game.
A.Q. Khan lasted aslong as he did...due to tacit approval of many Gov's....who would have gag order supplication on the U.S. to not disclose.
Call it chips for Dubbya to call in when he desires.
I have a bad feeling whole intact Russian nuclear warheads for Cruise missiles and Ballistic have been in Egypt,Syria,Iran, for near a decade now.
Libya was likely part of the group too.
The 4 would build cruise missiles and such off Russian designs and actuall working inventory.
Set up for production line.
Iran and N.K. the nuclear material for the warheads.
Even though these nations get allong tenatively...,its possible they formed a strategic alliance.
IAEA discovered signature Nuclear research activity in Egypt.
Article excerpt:
A few months ago we denied these kinds of claims and we do so again," Egyptian government spokesman Magdy Rady said. "Nothing about our nuclear program is secret and there is nothing that is not known to the IAEA."
But one of the diplomats said the Egyptians "tried to produce various components of uranium" without declaring it to the IAEA, as they were bound to under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The products included several pounds of uranium metal and uranium tetrafluoride — a precursor to uranium hexafluoride gas, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Uranium metal can be processed into plutonium, while uranium hexafluoride can be enriched into weapons-grade uranium — both for use in the core of nuclear warheads.
L.S.]
Those Ukrainian KH 55 cruise missiles which suddenly turned up were part of the engineering set up for larger production In my thinking.
KH 55
There is no evidence here that Asher Karni- a resident of South Africa- did anything with the permission of the Israeli government, any more than he did it with the permission of the US government.
thanks for the ping
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