Phone Calls Said to Tip Off U.S. to Plant : Libyan Pleas to Germans for Help on Spill Reportedly Intercepted

U.S. intelligence agencies got hard evidence that Libya has a poison gas plant by eavesdropping on frantic Libyan telephone calls for help to West German companies after a spill during a poison gas production test last August, NBC News reported Thursday.

It said summaries of the intercepted conversations were recently turned over to West German officials to quash their government’s denials that West German firms had helped build what the United States says is a Libyan chemical weapons plant.

And in Bonn, Chancellor Helmut Kohl said that authorities there have seized new documents that could provide evidence that West German companies helped Libya build such a plant.

West German Finance Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg, visiting Washington, echoed the chancellor’s position.

“We have certain indications but . . . no concrete judgment,” Stoltenberg told German journalists who questioned him about whether West German companies had helped construct what Libya says is only a pharmaceutical factory, 40 miles southwest of Tripoli .

NBC said U.S. intelligence agencies became certain 18 months ago that Libya was about to produce poison gas.

It said they learned Libya had obtained thionyl chloride, tributylamine and chlorobenzene, which the television network said are chemicals that can only produce poison gas when mixed with other chemicals already in Libya.

Then, NBC quoted unidentified sources as saying, the U.S. intelligence agencies got hard evidence last August by eavesdropping on Libyan telephone calls to West German firms asking for a cleanup crew after a spill during a poison gas test production run.

Key Firm Named

NBC said one of the companies the Libyans called was Imhausen-Chemie, whose consultants and engineers had constructed the interior of what it called the poison gas plant.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, the Justice Ministry said the head of an Antwerp shipping company has been arrested and charged with forging shipping documents for goods delivered to Libya.

Jozef Gedopt, head of Cross Link NV of Antwerp, was arrested late Wednesday night on the basis of information provided by West Germany. The information was found by investigators examining seized records of I.B.I. Engineering, a defunct Frankfurt company, a ministry spokesman said without elaborating.

West German media have reported that the firm transported building material to Libya.

Antwerp magistrate Walter De Smedt, asked whether the allegedly false documents had served to cover up shipments to Libya by West German firms, said: “Not only from West Germany but from all over Europe.”

In a West German television interview, Chancellor Kohl said that justice officials in Bonn are examining new papers to determine if they hold “conclusive material” that would stand up in court showing a role by private West German firms in the Libyan plant.

“Certain documents have been seized in the past few days from which some possibly new--something I don’t know yet--conclusive material could be borne out, and not just suppositions,” Kohl added.

The chancellor, in responding to questions from reporters in a studio appearance late Thursday night on West Germany’s ZDF television network, said the documents involved chemical equipment that could be used in many ways, but did not elaborate. He did not say where the papers were seized.

Earlier, Kohl’s spokesman said the government had found traces of West German complicity in building the suspected chemical weapons plant--a stunning reversal that embarrassed Bonn authorities.

Friedhelm Ost, the chief government spokesman, said in a statement: “The federal government has indications of the possible participation of German companies or persons at this plant in Libya. West German authorities are intensively pursuing these leads.”

The government also said Thursday that a group of West German experts is returning from Washington, where they examined American evidence regarding the plant.