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German engineer charged with treason for selling nuclear-weapons plans to Iraq Von Paul Geitner |
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A German engineer accused of helping Iraq with a program to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons has been charged with treason and violating export laws. Karl-Heinz Schaab, 62, was convicted in 1993 of violating export laws and sentenced to 11 months probation for selling Iraq blueprints for a gas centrifuge used for producing weapons-grade uranium in 1989. But Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm said Monday that new evidence gathered by U.N. inspectors after the 1991 Gulf War indicated the plans Schaab sold were not for the outdated "subcritical" centrifuge as originally thought, but for a far more advanced and modern type. The new evidence justified the new charges, the prosecutor said. The treason charge, which carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, was filed at a Munich court on Feb. 1, along with the charge for violating export laws. No court date has been set. Schaab reportedly sold Iraq the plans for $1.2 million; a spokeswoman for Nehm said she could not confirm that figure. He has admitted helping Iraq but denies the information he provided was sensitive or critical enough to be considered treason, his lawyer, Michael Rietz, said when Schaab turned himself in. Schaab also maintains others were involved and his own role was "minimal." Schaab was working as a subcontractor with Urenco, a German-Dutch-British coalition for uranium-enrichment technology, in the late 1980s when he was approached by Iraqi scientists looking for help with their program, said David Kyd, spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria. CourtTV, 8. Februar 1999 |