Computer salesmen and technicians wandered around in shock, and the receptionist could not handle the number of calls that were coming in from around the world on Thursday to the sleek headquarters of SMB Group, an information technology organization.
The cause of the disruption was US President George W. Bush's speech to the National Defense University on Wednesday, in which he described the nuclear black market network created by the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Bush said that Khan's deputy was B.S.A. Tahir, who "ran SMB Computer, a business in Dubai," which was a "front for the proliferation activities of the A.Q. Khan network."
Puzzled employees said they had more questions than answers and declined to comment.
In a brief telephone interview on Wednesday, Seyed Ibrahim Bukhari, the owner and manager of SMB Group, said that it dealt only in legal computer sales.
He said that the man Bush mentioned, Bukhary Sayed Abu Tahir, a businessman from Sri Lanka, has no ownership in the group, and is not involved in management at any level. Seyed is a younger brother of Tahir.
In the trading network that Khan created to sell nuclear equipment and designs to countries on three continents, some companies involved were doing legitimate business in finely-tooled parts without knowing where the components would end up.
Others were agents for Khan, forwarding secret shipments to Libya, Iran and other countries, knowing full well these countries were working on secret nuclear programs.
Like the SMB Group, another company that said it did not intentionally participate in Khan's network was Scomi Precision Engineering, a manufacturing firm in Malaysia. It produced centrifuge parts that were intercepted last year on a ship bound for Libya.
A Scomi corporate executive said on Thursday that the company had negotiated the contract for the parts with Tahir, but he had never mentioned SMB Computer.
"I have never heard of it," the executive, Meena Kanthaswamy, said in a telephone interview, referring to SMB Computer. "None of us have."
Scomi executives said that Tahir said he was representing Gulf Technical Industries, a Dubai trading firm that, according to US and British investigators, put the shipment of centrifuge parts aboard the Libya-bound ship.
Gulf Technical was founded and is partly owned by Peter Griffin, who supplied material to Khan when he first developed Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, according to Griffin.
According to government records in Dubai, Tahir, a resident, established SMB Computer, a limited liability company, in 1981. At the outset he owned 49 percent. As required by law, 51 percent belonged to a citizen of the United Arab Emirates.
In Malaysia, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi expressed his displeasure at Bush's speech.
"We are not involved in such activity," he said, referring to allegations that Malaysia had been a key link in Khan's nuclear network. He didn't say if the Malaysian authorities were questioning Tahir.
After the company expanded, SMB Group was formed, with SMB Computer as one division.
RSS