Spain Arrests 16-Year U.S. Nuclear Fugitive

A U.S. citizen convicted of selling nuclear arms parts to Israel has been arrested in Spain after 16 years on the run, police said Monday.

Richard Kelly Smith, 71, escaped before being sentenced in the U.S. on 15 counts of exporting nuclear arms technology and 15 counts of falsification of documents.

He was picked up two weeks ago in Malaga on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain, where he had been living since 1985, police said.

Spain’s High Court will now consider whether to extradite him.

“In 1985, Los Angeles authorities filed an international warrant for [Smith’s] arrest and extradition . . . so we are complying with that request,” a spokesman for the national police in Malaga said. “The case has been transferred to the High Court.”

Smith was chairman of a Los Angeles-based company that developed microchips called “Kryptons,” which are involved in the firing mechanism of nuclear weapons, police said.

From 1980 to 1982, he falsified documents so that his company could sell the Kryptons to an Israeli company for an undisclosed sum.

The U.S. Embassy in Madrid declined to comment.

A spokesman for the Spanish Justice Ministry said that since Smith’s arrest, Washington has made no formal extradition request.