A South African judge on Friday rejected a government request for a blanket media ban in a trial of two men accused of links to a global black market in atomic weapons technology, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) reported.
State prosecutors had argued that national security might be compromised by information revealed in the trial of German national Gerhard Wisser and Daniel Geiges, a Swiss citizen, and asked that proceedings take place in a closed court.
Pretoria High Court Judge Joop Labuschagne turned down the request, which had been opposed by South African media houses, although he added that the secrecy order could be imposed later if the evidence warrants it, SABC news said.
The South African case is part of an international effort to crack what prosecutors say is a trade network which helped Libya, North Korea and Iran skirt sanctions in their quest for nuclear technology.
Wisser and Geiges, both engineers living in South Africa, were arrested in 2004 and have pleaded not guilty. Their trial is scheduled to start in July.
Prosecutors said they had evidence linking the two men to the network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb programme who has admitted supplying nuclear secrets to countries under international embargo including North Korea, Iran and Libya.
South Africa — which voluntarily dismantled its own nuclear weapons programme before the end of apartheid in 1994 — was among 20 countries named by the United Nations’s atomic agency as recipients of Khan’s atomic secrets.
South African prosecutors say they have evidence linking the two accused to efforts to procure gas centrifuge equipment used for uranium enrichment for Libya.
A third man originally arrested in the case, Johan Meyer, has since turned state witness. – Reuters