The surprise resolution of the case of Gerhard Wisser — the South African resident implicated in a secret ring of nuclear technology smugglers — has paved the way for further international trials of people involved in the so-called ”Khan network”.
The trial of Wisser and his co-accused, Dieter Geiges, was expected to last up to three years and to include highly sensitive evidence about the operations of the covert network set up by AQ Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb.
Instead, on Tuesday, the state presented a plea and sentence agreement reached with Wisser and accepted evidence that Geiges, who has cancer, was not fit to stand trial at this stage.
Wisser pleaded guilty to all the main charges, which related to his role in supplying prohibited technology items intended for use in the Pakistani nuclear programme and, later, a similar secret project initiated by Libya.
The clandestine Libyan programme was uncovered and shut down in 2003, leading to the unmasking of alleged members of the Khan network, notably Wisser and Geiges in South Africa, but also nuclear engineer Gotthard Lerch in Germany and the Tinner brothers in Switzerland.
Lerch was regarded as one of the kingpins of the network that smuggled technology to Pakistan and other rogue nuclear states.
However, an attempt to prosecute him in Germany ground to a halt last year because of technical objections to the admissibility of evidence against him.
Now Wisser has agreed to make himself available to testify in other trials as part of his plea agreement, and several sources close to the process confirmed that Lerch was the next target — whether for extradition to South Africa or retrial in Germany.