Free Republic

TOKYO, Aug. 28 — An investigation into a Japanese manufacturer suspected of exporting sophisticated measuring devices to Libya’s former atomic weapons program has increasingly focused on whether the company also sold similar equipment to Iran, a government official said Monday. The police and regulators have broadened their investigation of the company, the Mitutoyo Corporation, a maker of precision instruments, as evidence has emerged that it may have also sold equipment to Iran for use in making centrifuges to enrich uranium, said an official in the Trade Ministry, which administers export restrictions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he...

Mitutoyo Corp. developed computer software in the early 1990s to make its three-dimensional measuring machines appear less accurate so they could bypass Japan's export regulations on products that can be used in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, investigative sources said Monday. Developers of the software and officials of Mitutoyo, which manufactures precision measuring devices, used an in-house code name, COCOM, to refer to the software, the sources at the Metropolitan Police Department said. COCOM is an acronym for Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, an international accord that put an embargo on Western high-tech exports to Eastern bloc...

A firm suspected of illegally exporting precision measuring devices to Malaysia that could be used to make nuclear bombs is now suspected of exporting such equipment to Iran, police sources said. Five executives of precision machinery maker Mitutoyo Corp. were arrested Friday on suspicion the Kawasaki-based company exported the devices to Malaysia without a permit. Mitutoyo-made devices have been found in Libya in inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Because they can be used in building nuclear weapons, export of the devices was forbidden without a permit from the then Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Mitutoyo is now...

Mitutoyo falsifies Iranian recipient's name to get export permission (Kyodo) _ Precision measuring device maker Mitutoyo Corp. falsified the name of the Iranian corporate recipient of a high-tech measuring machine in 1997 in filing an application document for an export permit from the Japanese government, investigative sources said Saturday. Mitutoyo entered a fictitious corporate name in the application document's section for the machine's importer instead of Pars Switch Co., the real recipient, in seeking the permit from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the predecessor of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the sources said. The manufacturer exported...