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.
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