BONN CHECKS REPORT OF SMUGGLING OF ATOMIC TECHNOLOGY TO PAKISTAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 5, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE- Zky-
5 May 1987
Bonn Checks Report of Smuggling
OfAtomic Technology to Pakistan
By JAMES M. MARKHAM
Special to The New York Ti vies
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230001-0
BONN, May 4 - The Cologne prose-
cutor's office has begun an investiga-
tion of a West German company that is
suspected of illegally exporting plans
that may have helped Pakistan build a
uranium enrichment plant. Such a
plant could be used in making nuclear
weapons.
According to sources in the prosecu-
tor's office, investigators last week
raided the Cologne offices of the com-
pany, Leybold-Heraeus, and its factory
outside Frankfurt. The investigation
centers on Otto Heilingbrunner, a di-
rector of the concern, and Gotthard
Lerch, a senior executive who is said to
have left it in 1985, officials said.
Leybold-Heraeus, which employs
some 5,000 people in West Germany,
does contracting work for the Urenco
consortium, which runs high-speed
centrifuges to produce low-grade ura-
nium. The consortium is owned by Brit-
ain, West Germany and the Nether-
lands.
The two executives, according to
sources close to the investigation, are
suspected of delivering blueprints ac-
quired surreptitiously from Urenco to
the Swiss concern Metallwerke in
Buchs in order to produce autoclaves
used to heat uranium hexafluoride,
which then passes through centrifuges
in an enrichment plant.
Swiss Seize Equipment
In early 1986, the Swiss customs au-
thorities seized three autoclaves that
had been produced by Metaliwerke as
well as blueprints involved in their fab-
rication. According to an article in the
West German magazine Stern, some of
the components had already been
smuggled to Pakistan.
Executives at Leybold-Heraeus and
Metallwerke had no comment on the
Cologne investigation. But Hans Mor-
hauer, an executive at Uranit, the West
German branch of Urenco, said Ley-
bold-Heraeus had acquired the blue-
prints in the course of making a bid
that was not accepted.
"They were in possession of the
documents quite legally," Mr. Mor-
hauer said. "The documents that were
misused were not classified secrets,
nor did they have any other classica-
tion. They are used for uranium enrich-
ment and are on export lists."
Abdel Qader Khan, a scientist who is
widely described as the head of Paki-
stan's nuclear weapons program, once
worked for a Dutch firm involved with
Urenco's centrifuge facility at Almelo
in the Netherlands. In 1974; he abruptly
returned to Pakistan and resigned his
job, and helped develop the nation's
uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta
outside Islamabad.
In a recent interview with a British
newspaper, Mr. Khan said Pakistan
had a nuclear device more powerful
than the one exploded by India in 1974.
The Pakistani Government later
denied his assertion.
Western diplomats say Pakistan has
an active network of scientists in West-
ern Europe seeking components and
special metals associated with Islama-
bad's nuclear program. "They have a
whole shopping list," one diplomat
said. "It's a Europe-wide operation."
Pakistan's Ambassador to West Ger-
many, Abdul Waheed, described the re-
ports about the Cologne investigation
as "a lot of spy stories and cock-and-
bull stories."
"It's smearing Pakistan's name,"
the Ambassador said in an interview,
reiterating his Government's position
that its nuclear program is only in-
tended for peaceful purposes.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230001-0