Malaysia's surprise arrest of a senior figure in disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear proliferation network has prompted suggestions it was done to appease the US and protect the prime minister's son from further scandal.
A US State Department spokesman said Washington was "delighted" with the arrest of Buhary Syed Abu Tahir on Friday, three months after police cleared him of breaking any Malaysian laws for arranging for a company controlled by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's son to make centrifuge parts for Libya's nuclear programs.
Abdullah had earlier insisted there had been no wrongdoing and that Tahir, a Sri Lankan who holds Malaysian permanent residency, would remain free. Abdullah signed the order to arrest Tahir on Friday under a tough security law allowing for indefinite detention without trial.
Opposition leaders yesterday accused Abdullah of using the Internal Security Act instead of regular criminal laws against Tahir so he wouldn't be brought to court where details that could incriminate or embarrass Abdullah's son, Kamaluddin Abdullah, might emerge.
"Abdullah must explain why Tahir was arrested after police cleared him of any wrongdoing just a few months ago," said Kamaruddin Jaafar, a senior official with the opposition Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party. "He must also explain why his son is spared from any action when in fact it is his company that produced the centrifuges."
"I worry that the arrest under the ISA is the result of a compromise between Abdullah and the US government, whereby action is taken against Tahir and in return no one else is implicated -- that the arrest is meant to silence Tahir to hide the details of his workings with the prime minister's son," Kamaruddin told reporters.
Abdullah is on an official visit to China and has not commented on Tahir's arrest.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the US was "delighted" by Tahir's arrest.
"We think his arrest is a major step and it will serve as a catalyst to international efforts to shut down the Khan network," he said.
Tahir is the most senior figure in the proliferation network headed by Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, to be arrested since he confessed in February to selling nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan after he made a public apology.
International investigators say the network stretched across five continents, exploiting loopholes in international nonproliferation treaties to provide what International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei called a "nuclear supermarket."
US President George W. Bush in February called Tahir the network's "chief financial officer and money launderer."
Tahir brokered a contract for Scomi Precision Engineering, or SCOPE, to build sophisticated components between 2001 and 2003 that authorities say were for Pakistani-designed centrifuges, machines that can be used to enrich uranium for weapons and other purposes.
SCOPE says it thought the parts were for the oil and gas industry in Dubai. A Malaysian police investigation concluded the parts had more than one possible use, and cleared SCOPE of any wrongdoing.
The CIA and Britain's MI6 in October seized 25,000 SCOPE-made parts in the Mediterranean in a shipment bound for Libya, blowing the lid off Khan's network and prompting fresh investigations into Libyan and Iranian nuclear programs.
SCOPE was a subsidiary of Scomi Group, which is controlled by Kamaluddin, the prime minis-ter's son, through a private investment company, Kaspadu.
Tahir served on the board Kaspadu for some of the time the centrifuge deal was struck. Scomi and Kamaluddin have since cut all ties with Tahir, and Scomi has sold SCOPE.
Tahir, 44, who ran a computer business in Dubai, moved to Malaysia in the mid-1990s and established contacts among the country's elite. Khan attended his marriage to the daughter of a Malaysian diplomat in 1998.
Malaysian police say Tahir told them he had been acquainted with Khan since the 1980s and helped smuggle nuclear materials to Iran and Libya.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
‘EAST SHIELD’: State-run Belma said it would produce up to 6 million mines to lay along Poland’s 800km eastern border, and sell excess to nations bordering Russia and Belarus Poland has decided to start producing anti-personnel mines for the first time since the Cold War, and plans to deploy them along its eastern border and might export them to Ukraine, the deputy defense minister said. Joining a broader regional shift that has seen almost all European countries bordering Russia, with the exception of Norway, announce plans to quit the global treaty banning such weapons, Poland wants to use anti-personnel mines to beef up its borders with Belarus and Russia. “We are interested in large quantities as soon as possible,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Pawel Zalewski said. The mines would be part
RSS