South Africa will not immediately share information with other countries on a worldwide nuclear-technology smuggling ring, its ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Wednesday.
Speaking to South African journalists via video link from Vienna, Abdul Minty said authorities had still to take statements from the managing director of a German engineering firm operating in South Africa, Gerhard Wisser, who was found to be involved in the AQ Khan smuggling ring.
Wisser was sentenced by a South African court to an 18-year suspended jail sentence for his involvement in the network, as well as three years correctional supervision in terms of the plea-bargain agreement that he had reached with the National Prosecuting Authority.
In terms of the plea bargain, he will assist the authorities in their investigations against other role players suspected to be involved in the smuggling ring.
”The normal practice is not that we simply give that information to any country or entity, because we also have to be careful about proliferation. We would of course share this in the end when we are finished with our process with the IAEA. After that we will see what requests there are from countries,” Minty said.
His statement comes a day after he urged other countries affected by the network to enhance their efforts to prosecute other role players involved in it.
”It is only through resilient action that we will be able to achieve the successful prosecution of all the major actors involved in these global illicit networks, which will lead to the complete elimination of the network,” he told the board meeting of the IAEA on Tuesday.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, confessed in 2004 to passing nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya. — Sapa