Japanese police yesterday raided a precision instrument maker, a company official said, amid media reports it allegedly exported machinery that could be used in uranium enrichment.
Reports said devices manufactured by the Mitutoyo Corp, based outside Tokyo, may also have been diverted to an international nuclear trafficking network as well as to Libya's now-abandoned clandestine nuclear program.
Investigators raided the headquarters of Mitutoyo Corp yesterday morning, according to a company official who refused to be named, citing internal regulations. The official said she could not provide further details, but said the company was "cooperating fully" with investigations.
Mitutoyo Corp is suspected of exporting two three-dimensional measurement machines that can be used for uranium enrichment -- a technology that can produce nuclear fuel or bombs -- to subsidiaries of Japanese firms in China and Thailand in 2001, according to a report carried on Sunday by the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest daily.
The machines are generally used to spot deformations on a range of equipment. Devices cannot be exported without special government permission because they can also be used in the process of uranium enrichment, according to Mikio Aoki, an official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The machine can measure centrifuges used in uranium enrichment to help make the enrichment process more effective, he said.
Aoki, however, said he was not authorized to speak about the allegations against Mitutoyo, or on findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and was unaware of previous cases of alleged illegal export by the company.
Various reports have said the IAEA discovered Mitutoyo machinery at nuclear-related sites in Libya during inspections in December 2003 and January 2004.
The reports allege the equipment had been shipped to Libya via Dubai by Scomi Precision Engineering, a Malaysian maker linked to an international nuclear trafficking network, which imported six units from Mitutoyo in early 2002.
Some 25,000 centrifuge parts for enriching uranium were seized last October en route to Libya in an operation that uncovered a network led by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Malaysian police cleared the engineering firm of knowing the parts were bound for Libya, or intended for nuclear use. The company says it thought they were destined for the oil and gas industry in Dubai.
Police suspect machinery exported by Mitutoyo may have also reached North Korea via the international black market in nuclear-related technology, the daily Sankei Shimbun said on Sunday.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police said they could not disclose any information on the matter.
Libya said in 2003 it had had given up what had been a secret nuclear, biological and chemical weapons program.
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