German Police Probe Report of Nuclear Transfers

Police on Friday sealed off a nuclear processing plant where authorities investigated reports the operator broke an international treaty by shipping weapons-grade nuclear material to Libya and Pakistan.

Authorities said the international police organization, Interpol, and the Swedish government also were looking into reports the alleged shipments passed through Sweden.

Volker Hauff, deputy parliamentary leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party, said in Bonn on Friday that a source he would not identify told him investigators searching the idled Nukem plant near Frankfurt “turned up evidence of a breach of the treaty.”

Albert Farwick, the prosecutor leading the investigation, said in an interview that he had not found any evidence weapons-grade uranium was exported illegally from the plant in Hanau, 12 miles east of Frankfurt. But he declined to answer when asked whether Nukem or its subsidiary may have violated the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in another way.

In a statement issued Friday, Nukem said: “Nukem and Transnuklear (a subsidiary also under investigation) have never delivered or transported enriched or weapons-grade material to Libya, Pakistan or the Sudan.” There was no further explanation of the reference to Sudan.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is intended to prohibit the spread of atomic weapons. West Germany is among the more than 100 nations that have signed the treaty.

Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadafi has made no secret of his desire to join the world’s “nuclear club.” Pakistan has said its nuclear program is strictly for power generation and other peaceful purposes. But both Libya and Pakistan are believed to have nuclear weapons programs.

West German police on Friday set up a round-the-clock guard at the Nukem plant, a day after the Environment Ministry shut it down.

Prosecutors planned to question an informant who provided the tip on the uranium shipments.