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Nuclear proliferation- a profitable crime that goes unpunished

Nuclear proliferation is a crime that pays well. Those involved in the Khan network were made very wealthy for their efforts, and the inability of the international community to effectively punish them has resulted in a missed opportunity to provide a deterrent against future black-market salesmen.

Nuclear Proliferation: The Crime with No Punishment?, TIME,B y Eben Harrell , Sept. 16, 2011 In 2003, the seizure of sensitive nuclear equipment on a ship in an Italian port played a key role in the unraveling of a vast, international smuggling ring led by the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan that supplied nuclear technology to some of the world’s most dangerous regimes. Prosecuting those involved in this proliferation network, however, has proved difficult. Today none of the people associated with the so-called Khan network remain in prison.

This month, Swiss prosecutors announced that they were having another go at the network. They said that three central players in the Khan ring will finally face charges in the fall related to the sale of nuclear equipment and technical expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The announcement follows a nearly decadelong investigation into Urs Tinner, his brother Marco and their father Friedrich that shows the complexities of nuclear-smuggling cases and the inadequacies of the legal systems in place to prevent them.

Efforts to prosecute black-market proliferators have been hampered by disputes between governments, the reluctance of intelligence agencies to hand over sensitive evidence to prosecutors and a lack of strong export-control laws; in many places, smuggling technology related to the development of nuclear weapons is not even illegal.

In the case of the Tinners, their prosecution has been complicated by the fact that for the final few years they were in the proliferation business, the Tinners were also working as CIA spies……

While the Tinners case shows the delicate balance between the need to protect intelligence sources and the enforcement of international law, there are unfortunately far more spurious reasons why others involved in the Khan network have evaded justice. Khan himself was put under house arrest in 2004 but pardoned later that year by the Pakistani government. Indeed, his status as a national hero because of his role in developing Pakistan’s nuclear bomb has made it politically impossible to seek anything more than a minimal punishment against him…….
Nuclear proliferation is a crime that pays well. Those involved in the Khan network were made very wealthy for their efforts, and the inability of the international community to effectively punish them has resulted in a missed opportunity to provide a deterrent against future black-market salesmen. In 2004 and in the wake of the Khan scandal, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1540, which mandated that all states enact legislation criminalizing trafficking in weapons of mass destruction; many countries have yet to enact the legislation, and enforcement mechanisms remain poor around the world…..   Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2092585,00.html#ixzz1YFebGiSQ

September 17, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties