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A German engineer accused of selling nuclear technology to Iraq was ordered jailed Friday, a day after he returned home from Brazil and turned himself in so he could visit his terminally ill mother. Karl-Heinz Schaab, a fugitive since January 1996, was arrested at Frankfurt airport Thursday after arriving on a flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Federal prosecutor Kay Nehm said Schaab, who has been under investigation for treason since 1995, is suspected of helping Iraq produce weapons-grade uranium in 1989-90. The 64-year-old engineer allegedly sold Iraq secret construction plans for a uranium enrichment plant for $1.2 million. The plans were found by U.N. inspectors in Iraq. Schaab, who plans to make at least a partial confession, denies the information he provided was "secret enough to justify this serious charge of treason," his lawyer, Michael Rietz, said. According to Rietz, Schaab admits "moral guilt" for helping Iraq with what he saw at first as a "technical challenge" but insists others were involved and his own role was "minimal". The Iraqis didn't just run around and ask him, "Will you help us develop our atomic weapons program?" Rietz said. By the time, however, Schaab realized what they were up to, "he was maybe in too deep." He said Schaab's firm also was having financial problems at the time and Schaab needed money. Schaab, who was placed on probation after a 1993 conviction for violating export laws, disappeared from his home in the Bavarian town of Kaufbeuren in January 1996. He was arrested in December that year in Rio de Janeiro while reportedly trying to obtain a permanent visa, but released after 15 months in custody when Brazil's Supreme Court rejected Germany's extradition request. Early this year, Schaab began negotiating his return, partly because he wanted to visit his 96-year-old mother, who is terminally ill. The two spent 2´ hours together Thursday before Schaab was brought to a Bavarian prison, Rietz said. Schaab appeared in court Friday in Munich and was ordered held pending further proceedings. In a 1996 interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Schaab admitted providing technical information to Iraq, but said at least four other German nuclear experts also were involved in helping to set up the uranium enrichment plant. Rietz also said Schaab was convinced the Iraqis would never be in a position to manage an enrichment program for weapons-grade uranium. Inspectors who assessed Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War found that Iraq was one or two years away from building a bomb.
Augusta, 25. September 1998 |
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