Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:01 pm Post subject: Germany Smuggling Weapons to Iran |
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GERMANY: 100 FIRMS INVOLVED IN ILLEGAL ARMS EXPORTS TO IRAN
Berlin, 22 March (AKI) - As many as 100 dummy firms in Germany are involved in illegally exporting components for missiles and aircraft to Iran, according to security experts interviewed by German public broadcaster ARAD, quoted by the German Deutsche Welle radio station's website. Most of the exports were designed to refine and perfect Iran's missile programme - considered by many to be a key part of the country's ambitions to establish itself as a major nuclear and military power.
Johannes Schmalzl, president of Germany's Office for the protection of the Constitution in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg, told the programme 'Report Mainz' that the German authorities were having difficulty tracking the scale of the illegal exports by front-companies. Iran has been sending agents on shopping trips to Europe and to Germany, in order to improve the reach and precision of their missiles, the programme reported.
Most of the Iranian spies disguised the arms exports through a maze of small trade firms and distribution points, both within Iran and abroad. Such networks served to mislead the authorities and facilitate the illegal exports, according to the German authorities. German firms' involvement in illegal arms exports is not confined to Iran alone. Since the 1980s, German firms and middlemen, along with counterparts in other European countries, have been suspected of smuggling nuclear technology to regimes in Pakistan and North Korea, Deutsche Welle said.
Last Friday, German businessman and engineer Gotthard Lerch on Friday went on trial in Mannheim, charged with breaking arms and exports laws for his role in providing technology for a gas centrifuge for Libya's disbanded nuclear weapons programme. He is the first alleged member of disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear arms smuggling ring to be brought to trial. Lerch, who was allegedly paid 34 million dollars for his services, denies the charges. |
Still waiting for somebody to be allowed to debrief Khan...
And as for Germans smuggling weapons to Iran, I wonder what would Oliver North say?
Wouldn't it be great if a journalist could get a couple of comments from him on this story? |
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