South African arrested on Nuke manufacturing charges

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The United States Friday linked a South African charged under weapons of mass destruction laws with Libya's clandestine nuclear program and Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan's nuclear black market. During yesterday's raid, items used to create weapons of mass destruction were recovered

Meyer, the director of a local engineering company, was accused of "unlawfully and willfully possessing and manufacturing nuclear-related equipment and material" between 2002 and 2004.

Libya began its quest for nuclear arms in 1980 and decided in 1997 to seek centrifuge equipment via the atomic black market, established in the 1980s by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.

Khan's network spanned the globe and included suppliers, often unwittingly, from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. U.N. atomic weapons experts say more than 20 countries were involved, though it is trying to grasp the full extent of what International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei called a global supermarket for countries interesting in getting nuclear weapons.

South African police said in February this year Washington had asked for their help in investigating possible associates of Asher Karni, a former Israeli army officer accused by the U.S. government of conspiring to export 200 U.S.-made nuclear weapons detonators to Pakistan via South Africa.




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