Businessman under scrutiny 25 years ago after ordering unusual supplies
Owen Bowcott, John Aglionby and Ian Traynor
Friday March 5, 2004
The Guardian
Allegations that Peter Griffin has been involved in providing equipment for Pakistan's clandestine project to develop a nuclear bomb first surfaced 25 years ago. He has always denied any wrongdoing. A company of which he was then a director, Weargate Ltd, was reported to have been involved in trying to ship ?1.25m worth of electrical equipment - inverters, which ensure continued supply of electrical current - to Pakistan.
The shipment was supposedly destined for the Special Works Organisation in Rawalpindi, the agency responsible for coordinating Pakistan's nuclear weapons. That programme was run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man now known as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.
Last month Khan admitted that as well as heading Pakistan's nuclear programme, he had also set up a black market in nuclear technology, selling equipment on to Iran, Libya and North Korea. He has been granted clemency but has been under house arrest.
When Weargate was named, the company denied it was being used to procure equipment for the Pakistani nuclear industry. Simon Henderson, a Financial Times journalist who interviewed Mr Griffin at the time, recently reported that the businessman told him: "I am not helping Pakistan make a nuclear bomb, but why shouldn't Pakistan have a nuclear bomb anyway?"
The allegations surrounding the Weargate case nonetheless triggered public alarm about the way in which Pakistan was seeking "dual use" equipment, which might be used for military or civilian purposes, and could be exploited to construct a nuclear programme. The Department of Trade and Industry announced it would tighten up trade restrictions to include inverters - which were also then used by the British nuclear industry - in the list of controlled export items.
It is alleged that Mr Griffin first developed links with Mr Khan in the late 1970s and that he was in charge of procurement.
Mr Griffin first operated from his home, a rambling Victorian pile just outside Swansea. The British government became suspicious, partly because officials were alerted by small, highly skilled companies informing them that Mr Griffin was ordering unusual supplies. Mr Griffin, who travelled regularly around the world - including to Pakistan, according to various sources - did not export anything illegal.
In the early 1980s Mr Griffin moved most of his sourcing to Switzerland from where, officials believe, he had obtained supplies for years. It was probably during this period that Mr Griffin consolidated his relationship with a Swiss engineer, Urs Tinner, who often worked as the team's point man on the various factory floors checking specifications and overseeing product development.
It is unclear how long Mr Griffin remained in Switzerland or where he went next but in June 2000 he established Gulf Technical Industries (GTI) in Dubai as his next company with his son, Paul, and a local partner, Ahmad Hassan Rashid Ahmad al Abbar.
Dubai was where a trusted lieutenant of Mr Khan's, BSA Tahir, was based. Mr Tahir has been identified by both investigators from the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) and President Bush as a key operator who helped extend the smuggling network.
Mr Tahir was senior executive with SMB Computers in Dubai. The firm, a computer supply company, has strenuously denied that it was aware of Mr Tahir's other activities outside his normal work, such as trading in nuclear equipment.
The Griffins were thrust into the limelight again last month following Mr Khan's public confession that he had pursued black market dealings with Libya, Iran and North Korea. Mr Tahir, a Sri Lankan national, both the Griffins and Mr Tinner all featured prominently in a detailed Malaysian police report about a factory run by Scomi Precision Engineering (Scope) in Shah Alam, 40 minutes drive from the centre of Kuala Lumpur.
The plant was said by Malaysian police to have been commissioned to manufacture components for centrifuges that could be used to enrich uranium. Scomi insisted it had no idea that the parts were for nuclear plants; it believed they were for the oil industry.
Addressed to GTI in Dubai and then reshipped to Libya, the components were seized by the Italians and American investigators en route to Libya last October. The Malaysian report is said by officials at the IAEA in Vienna to be "credible and accurate". According to sources in Malaysia and Vienna, the shipment of nuclear equipment on board the intercepted ship, the BBC China, was the last of four sent to Libya over a period of 10 months.
Around the same time, according to the Malaysian police report, Mr Griffin organised the creation of a plant in Libya for making centrifuge parts. He is alleged "to have supplied the lay-out plan for a workshop to enable Libya to produce centrifuges". He was also said to have sup plied machinery and a furnace and arranged to have Libyan engineers trained in Spain, the police report added.
Ahmad Hassan Rashid Ahmed al Abbar, the co-director of GTI, told the Guardian in Dubai he was the "local sponsor" for the company but denied knowing anything about its trading in nuclear technology products. "I have seen the reports about the Libyans but I have never met any Libyans," he said. "Mr Griffin and Mr Tahir knew each other quite well. I met Tahir once through Mr Griffin, a social event when they were opening an SMB computer office."
Swiss authorities have opened an investigation into whether Mr Tinner broke Swiss law by knowingly contributing to the production of nuclear weapons. The family has admitted that Urs Tinner's father had known Mr Khan since the 1970s but denied that they had broken any laws.
Both Peter and Paul Griffin have strenuously denied breaking the law in any way. Paul Griffin has previously told the Guardian that he has been "framed" and insists that all his exports have been cleared with the Department of Trade and Industry. Peter Griffin now lives with his wife in a villa in the south of France. Contacted by the Guardian, she said: "He is not making any comment."
The Guardian sent him a series of questions about his alleged involvement with AQ Khan. His wife yesterday replied: "I'm sorry but Peter Griffin has been advised not to answer any questions along these lines at the present time. He is expecting to release a press statement within the next 10 days."
Christopher Mills, a solicitor with Clyde and Company of Dubai, which is representing Paul Griffin, was also sent the questions. He told the Guardian: "Given where we are in our investigations we are not able to make any comment. When we are ready we are going to contact the press. There are matters that are out of our control and we don't know when we are going to get what we are going to get. We can't make any further comment for fear of prejudicing the work we are trying to do."

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Nuclear trails and trials By IKRAM SEHGAL


It is becoming increasingly difficult for Pakistan to distinguish between friend and foe, with even former PM Ms Benazir Bhutto who one would hope would be a friend and as a former PM more propriety, choosing to hunt with the hounds rather than helping us run like hares. Because of his "nuclear moonlighting", Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan (AQK), our hero cum villain combined, is an albatross around Pakistan's neck that has brought us to ground zero of world public opinion. While the internal lapses must be investigated thoroughly so that more skeletons do not appear on an already hot tin roof, those wishing Pakistan ill are targeting Pakistan (and the Army) on all sorts of counts, giving lip service only to AQK's illegal activity but ignoring the foreign network of companies and the personalities involved.
BSA (Bashir?) Tahir, a trusted Sri Lankan businessman confidante of AQK, was actively involved in supplying centrifuge components for Libya's uranium-enrichment programme. Tahir used SCOPE, a Malaysian subsidiary of SCOMI GROUP BHD, a Malaysian company involved in the petroleum services industry. Tahir, whose Malaysian wife was one of three of SCOPE's sponsor directors (she subsequently sold the shares to one of the other sponsors, PM Badawi's son), told the Malaysian Police that his involvement with AQK started sometime in 1994/1995 during Ms Benazir's government when AQK used Tahir's services to transship two containers with used centrifuge units through Dubai to Iran. US$ 3 million was paid in UAE Dirham by the Iranians, two briefcases of cash being kept in an apartment used as a guesthouse by AQK whenever he visited Dubai. Libya contacted AQK in 1997 (again during Ms Benazir regime), to obtain help and expertise in the field of uranium-enrichment centrifuge as well as supply centrifuge units for Libya's nuclear programme. Several meetings between AQK (accompanied by Tahir) and representatives from Libya represented by Mohamad Matuq Mohamad and another person known as Karim took place in early 1997 in Istanbul, subsequently in Casablanca and in Dubai. Project Machine Shop 1001 was meant to set up a workshop in Libya to make centrifuge components which could not be obtained from outside Libya. The machines for the workshop were obtained from Spain and Italy, the middleman involved in this project was Peter Griffin, a British citizen, owner of Dubai-based Gulf Technical Industries (GTI). Earlier Griffin arranged to send 7 to 8 Libyan technicians to Spain to learn how to operate the machines, he also supplied an Italian-made furnace to Libya for the workshop.
Late Heinz Mebus, a Swiss engineer, was involved in discussions between AQK and Iran to supply centrifuge designs. Gotthard Lerch, a German citizen residing in Switzerland, once worked for Leybold Heraeus, a German company that is alleged to have produced vacuum technology equipment. Gotthard Lerch is alleged to have tried to obtain supplies of pipes for the Project Machine Shop 1001 by sourcing from South Africa but failed to obtain it even though payment had been made by Libya earlier. Selim Alguadis, an engineer from Turkey, known to AQK since the 80s, supplied electrical cabinets and power supplier-voltage regulator to Libya. After the police action against the ship BBC China in Taranto, Italy on 4 Oct 2003, a consignment sent by Gunas Jireh, a Turkish national who supplied `aluminum casting and dynamo' to Libya for its `Project Machine Shop 1001'. Tahir is alleged to have arranged the transshipment of electrical cabinets and power supplier-voltage regulator to Libya through Dubai on behalf of Selim Alguadis. Swiss citizen Friedrich Tinner the President of CETEC and mechanical engineer, had dealings with AQK since 1980s and is reported to have prepared certain centrifuge components, including safety valves, sourcing many of the materials from several companies in Europe, arranging for the supply to reach Dubai and then on to Libya. Urs Friedrich Tinner, the son of Friedrich Tinner, was the consultant arranged by Tahir to set up the SCOPE factory in Malaysia, and was actively involved in manufacturing operations of the factory.
Nearly all the personalities/corporate entities in the nuclear smuggling/procurement racket were foreign nationals with various expertise. A vast majority of domestic critics are blissfully ignorant of not only the facts but also the horrible consequences for Pakistan if there really was an official "smoking gun". Not entirely blameless in failing to exercise stricter security controls, the government of the day is certainly far less culpable than the earlier civilian regimes when AQK first started to run amok. Remaining under very strict official controls during the regimes of late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Gen Ziaul Haq, AQK cleverly exploited the ambiguity and used his absolute authority to do what he pleased for the subsequent illegal "export" activities. When the executive controls and security safeguards became somewhat of a grey area between the military with advent of civilian regimes since 1989.
Unconfirmed reports had appeared in the media in the early 70s about Col Qadafi's cheque for US$ 5 million in late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's name for our proposed nuclear program. This cheque being deposited with UBS in Switzerland and the purchase of gold thereof became a matter of subsequent in-family contention in the 90s as to the legal heirs. The recent nuclear contact with the Libyans is recorded between 1994 and 1997 during the period of Ms Benazir's regime, therefore her present diatribe against Gen Musharraf and the military could be a pre-emptive strike to ward off the charges of nuclear proliferation against her. Even without any direct "smoking gun", she is street-smart enough to be apprehensive that any such "nuclear taint" in the present post 9/11 environment would well be a "kiss of death" as far as her relations with western nations are concerned. Ms Benazir has made the astounding claim that during her first regime she set forth the BENAZIR DOCTRINE, officially disallowing exports of nuclear knowledge and material from Pakistan. What was the necessity for such a "doctrinaire" unless there were specific requests (and by whom?) for nuclear exports, indeed why has no one ever heard about the BENAZIR DOCTRINE for the last 15 years given that there was no apparent reason to keep this a secret and in fact every reason to make such a pledge public? During recent TV interviews Ms Benazir alleged that "Gen Pervez Musharraf is responsible for the nuclear exports to Libya", does she really believe this outrageous canard? With the President already treading a fail-safe line for Pakistan, it was extremely disappointing to see our former PM pursuing crass political objectives well knowing she was causing immense damage to the country. As an admirer of Ms Benazir's political talents and charisma, one expected her to uphold the national interest "even to the peril of her life".
Ms Benazir has a "crying wolf" history of going in for pre-emptive strikes to ward off corruption (and other) allegations, etc. Even her father went on and on about his making public the "Tashkent secret", four decades later we still do not know what it was! Wonderfully eloquent and media-wise, she has an inherent ability to state things straight-faced she knows to be patently wrong e.g. the Swiss money-laundering case which she denies ad nauseam even exists. Comparing herself to her late illustrious father "Zulfikar Ali Bhutto", the acknowledged "father of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear program", she claims the title of being the "mother of Pakistan's missile program". The best one can acclaim her is as the "mid-wife of the Taliban", they came into being under her regime's initiative in 1994 when the respected Maj Gen NK Babar was Interior Minister and Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, the then DG ISI. The government should trot out Qazi to detail on primetime TV as to the nexus between Ms Benazir and the Taliban. She may have more charisma than her father had, Ms Benazir does not display the same vision. While one does not question her patriotism, it is certainly sad that she did not exercise better judgment in leaving the Army alone, particularly at this critical time. Regretfully she is not the only one taking pot shots at us while we are staggering along on the nuclear trail while facing trial thereof in the kangaroo court of international public opinion.