By Juergen Dahlkamp, John Goetz and Holger Stark
In later questioning, Friedrich Tinner admitted that there had been secret "meetings with US authorities." The first of those meetings, Switzerland's Sonntagszeitung reports, took place in a hotel in Innsbruck, Austria. Urs Tinner also admitted to investigators he had worked for the CIA, although he declined to disclose any details.
Perhaps it was because his joint venture with the CIA began before 2003, when investigators cracked the ring by stopping the German freighter "BBC China" in the Italian port of Taranto, which had been carrying a load of cargo bound for Libya. The raid spelled the end of Gadhafi's dreams of hegemony.
According to American author Douglas Frantz, the CIA assigned an agent called "Mad Dog," one of its best, to begin trailing Urs Tinner in 2000. After he had learned from French intelligence that the young Tinner was being investigated in France, the CIA agent followed the man to Dubai, bought him a few drinks at a hotel bar and suggested the CIA could help him solve his French problem. That, apparently, prompted Urs Tinner to switch sides.
Frantz, quoting a CIA officer, says: "Tinner enabled us to see what the network was doing." The Swiss national apparently wasn't a classic agent at first, but he did show a willingness to cooperate, enabling the CIA agents to confirm information they had received from another informant inside the network. There are many indications that the CIA uncovered the Libya project early on. It wasn't until April 2002, long after his meeting with "Mad Dog," that Urs Tinner traveled to Malaysia to have parts manufactured there for Gadhafi's bomb factory. Later on George Tenet, the head of the CIA at the time, even gloated about his agency's surveillance of the group: "We were everywhere these people were."
Robert Einhorn, a former senior advisor at the State Department, recalls that in 2000 he and other officials were discussing "whether we should put a stop to it right way or observe and gain insights into the network."
The Americans chose the riskier strategy and allowed it to continue for years, until they finally intercepted the delivery with the greatest fanfare possible -- just as it was headed for Gadhafi. The strategy produced the desired effect. Caught red-handed the dictator, an outlaw until then, suddenly put an end to his eccentric, unilateralist behavior, especially his support for terrorists. Since then Iran, which also benefited from Khan's self-enrichment through uranium enrichment, has come under heightened pressure to abandon its centrifuge program.
Though no one knows yet how high the price of waiting really was, the Americans already have some idea. In autumn 2003, shortly before the raid on the BBC China ship, Tinner allegedly flew to Dubai to copy Khan's top-secret documents onto several CDs, including the design of a Chinese nuclear warhead for a carrier rocket. The Dubai dossier represents the core of the material shredded in Switzerland. It was something of a manual of global nuclear expertise, information that, though not entirely current, was nonetheless sufficient to cause a nuclear catastrophe. Since then, the "million-dollar question" for observers like Washington nuclear expert David Albright is this: Who else is still in possession of the plans?
Switzerland has a more pressing problem at the moment. The country is in a quandary over its identity as a constitutional state. In a hearing Urs Tinner, who has been in detention awaiting trial since 2004, claimed that the Americans had promised that they would discreetly help him in order to prevent any trial. There's a good chance they will deliver. A country that destroys documents in a pending legal case, argues Lerch's attorney Reims, can no longer guarantee the trial is in fact being conducted in accordance with the rule of law. Reims is convinced that "the Americans have now launched an all-out effort to get him out of there."
This sort of thing has to be "accepted when world peace is at stake," says Christoph Blocher, who was the Swiss justice minister reponsible for the case in November. On other fronts, the Swiss have also ranged from accommodating to subservient to the Americans. In August 2007, the Swiss government decided that no public prosecutors would be permitted to investigate the Tinners on suspicion of engaging in espionage. Additionally, not even a house visit presumed CIA agents paid on the Tinners in 2004, when the agents apparently made copies of several boxes of documents, has resulted in any consequences.
"This is unbelievable and a huge scandal," says Dick Marty, a Swiss member of parliament who served as a special investigator in the scandal involving the CIA's extraordinary rendition flights over Europe. But there will be no investigative committee in this case. And this is likely to suit a number of parties involved -- including the Swiss government, because evidence of secret CIA operations on Swiss soil has been destroyed, and the Vienna-based IAEA, because the destruction of the documents means that at least those bomb-making instructions were taken out of circulation.
The Tinners aren't the first members of the network who appear to be enjoying the protection of higher powers. Khan himself managed to come away with no punishment more serious than intermittent house arrest, and only last week he defended his actions without a trace of remorse. "I did what my country wanted from me," he said. Tahir has been similarly spared. Foreign investigators are only permitted to question him if they agree not to ask any questions about other Malaysians.
Briton Peter Griffin continues to live scot-free in southern France, even though he is described in the German case against Lerch as one of the key figures. The Mannheim District Court even guaranteed him free passage so that he could testify in the first case.
Finally, in South Africa Gerhard Wisser has saved his skin by reaching a deal with government prosecutors. He was given 18 years -- not in prison, but of nighttime house arrest in his mansion in a luxury neighborhood in Johannesburg. He provided a full confession in return.
That leaves Stuttgart defendant Lerch as more or less the only one who is not under some form of government protection. This may explain why his attorneys' defense strategies seem so old-fashioned. There is no hard evidence to tie Lerch to the Libya project, says attorney Reims, no fingerprints or signatures relating to the deal.
Federal prosecutors in Stuttgart are largely pinning their hopes on witness testimony. They can expect little from the Tinners, who aren't expected to travel to Stuttgart. Besides, their testimony in Switzerland has already been exculpatory -- they claim not to have know anything about Lerch's alleged role. Briton Griffon hasn't implicated Lerch either. Instead, the prosecution's case will rely almost entirely on witnesses -- and on Tahir, who the court can only question in Malaysia.
In a statement issued in June 2006, obtained by SPIEGEL, Tahir claims that Lerch, as a supplier, dealt with gas process technology and was paid 55 million deutsche marks at the time. Tahir also says that it was "completely clear" to the German that the plant was intended for Libya. Lerch, according to Tahir, also instructed him to transfer money to a Swiss bank account and make arrangements for shipping a lathe to South Africa. Finally, Tahir claims that Lerch also arranged for the visit of two Libyans to South Africa, where they allegedly inspected the facility.
Lerch's attorneys have refused to comment. However, they will certainly be aided by the fact that the German Federal Constitutional Court rejected a petition to seize the DM 55 million from Lerch, arguing that the Tahir was not necessarily considered a credible witness.
The confession with which Lerch's old friend Wisser reached an agreement with South African prosecutors has a different quality. A copy of the agreement obtained by SPIEGEL states that Lerch's company, AVE, ordered parts from Wisser for an uranium enrichment plant back in 1994. The shipment was apparently ready by January 1995 and was sent to Dubai. But to whom? Ironically, the recipient was a company owned by Tahir. Adding to Lerch's problems is the fact that an invoice still exists for 441,614 deutsche marks, which Wisser's company issued at the time to Lerch's company, AVE. The reference line on the invoice read "Your order."
AVE ordered more parts from Wisser in 1995, including, once again, vacuum technology used in uranium enrichment. And the destination port, yet again, was Dubai.
And then there was the Libyan deal. Wissers' version goes something like this: Lerch met him in Dubai in July 1999, where Lerch gave him his instructions. On Feb. 15, 2000, Lerch met Wisser in Zürich to give him the technical details, and later told him that Khan is the head of the project. Around the end of 2001, Lerch allegedly told Wisser that the plant was meant for Libya.
In the summer of 2003, the South African connection finally reported implementation. But during a meeting in Switzerland on Sept. 30, 2003, Lerch apparently asked Wisser to destroy everything: the system, the computer containing the plans, everything. Had he received a warning?
Lerch isn't saying anything now. He has told defense attorney Reims that he had "no point of contact" with the Libyan project. For this reason, Wisser's credibility will also be critical. But will he be willing to appear in person to testify as a witness? The National Prosecuting Authority in Pretoria has indicated that it will give serious consideration to an inquiry -- but no more than that.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.
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