Ship Bound for Iran May Be Halted : W. German Chemicals Reportedly to Be Stopped in Dubai

A ship loaded with tons of a mustard gas chemical component made by a West German firm and sent to Iran is en route to Dubai and will be stopped there, West German television reported Friday.

The ZDF network, quoting unidentified government sources in Bonn, said the ship sailed from Bombay, India, and was expected to arrive today in Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf.

West German officials said earlier Friday that they had information that the shipment had left Bombay, a transshipment point for the sale, but gave no further details. It was not immediately clear how the shipment was to be stopped in Dubai.

The shipment is at the center of a chemical weapons scandal in West Germany. Prosecutors said Thursday they had opened a criminal investigation of Rheineisen Chemical Products of Duesseldorf, which contracted to deliver to Iran more than 250 tons of thionyl chloride. The chemical can be used to make mustard gas.

Company officials deny any wrongdoing and have said they had government approval for the shipment. The company said this week it would cooperate in stopping the shipment.

In another development, The New York Times in today’s editions quoted an Indian official as saying the Indian government’s State Trading Corp. sold Iran 60 tons of thionyl chloride in March. The official said the sale, which was worth about $50,000, did not represent a breach of local laws because the chemical is a freely traded commodity often used in pesticides.

‘No Restrictions’

“There are no restrictions in India on the sale of this commodity and it has been an item that we have traded across the world,” the official was quoted as saying.

The official added that he could not say whether the chemical had been sold to Iran before the March shipment.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Friday it never planned to purchase chemicals from a West German firm to produce poison gas.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency, monitored in Nicosia, quoted an unidentified ministry spokesman as saying the allegations were “false, biased and followed particular political propaganda goals.”

The spokesman “categorically denied reports on Iran’s intention to purchase chemical materials for manufacture of chemical weapons” and accused U.S. and European media of making up the story.

IRNA also quoted the spokesman as denying the Iranians had summoned a diplomat in the case.

The West German Foreign Ministry said it had asked Iran to recall the diplomat after receiving information from Washington that he allegedly was involved in the deal. But the diplomat left before a formal request was made.

The Iranian spokesman said the diplomat’s tour of duty had ended more than a month ago and that he had returned to Tehran, according to IRNA.

Sources in Bonn identified the man as Seyed Karim Ali Sobhani and said he had worked for the Iranian Embassy there since September, 1987.

The Rheineisen revelations followed an international uproar six months ago over the involvement of West German companies in the building of a suspected poison gas factory in Libya.