Smuggled zirconium rings alarm bells over Pakistan’s atom-bomb plans

Press, 10 December 1981, Page 21

Smuggled zirconium rings alarm bells over Pakistan’s atom-bomb plans

By

MARK HOSENBALL

in New York and

ANTHONY MASCARENHAS in London, for

“Sunday Times,” London.

Passengers fastened their seatbelts and settled down for a 20-hour flight to Karachi as Pakistan International Airlines flight PK7I2 prepared to leave Kennedy Airport, New York. Everything seemed in order, yet there was an inexplicable delay. Then suddenly two United States customs agents entered the aircraft and checked passengers against photographs they carried of a well-groomed man aged about 50.

The man they were looking for — and did not find because he had left on an earlier flight — was not a potential - hijacker but a “respectable” Pakistani businessman, Dr Sarfraz Mir, “a retired Pakistan army officer and a close friend of President Zia” according to an American business associate.

The missing passenger had set off the alarm bells in New York and Washington on that Saturday, the last day in October, when it was discovered that his “excess baggage” — 15 large wooden crates said to hold mountaineering equipment — in fact contained 5000 lb of contraband zirconium, an essential element in nuclear technology. This rare metal is high on the list of items requiring export licences which the United States government strictly supervises to prevent nuclear proliferation.

The authorities are convinced that the zirconium, in

this case looking remarkably like three foot stainless steel bars, was intended to provide the casing for Pakistani-pro-duced uranium fuel rods used in the Karachi reactor. Supplies for the reactor have for the last four years been blacked by the West because it suspects Pakistan is using the plutonium produced as a by-product to make a nuclear device which General Zia hopes to test-ex-plode in the next few months.

The timing of the airport discovery was particularly embarrassing for Washington. The Reagan administration was in the process of obtaining congressional approval for the sale of 40 Fl 6 fighters to Pakistan in the face of strong political opposition. The incident could have jeopardised the deal.

So official secrecy was imposed. Inquiries by the “Sunday Times” were met with stony silence. A routine customs press release about the zirconium seizure was cancelled. “They are not going to have a political storm stirred up,” one law enforcement official confided.

The attempt to smuggle zirconium to Pakistan is the latest evidence of an extensive international secret purchasing network set up in

1977 to flesh out Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions. General Zia had steadfastly denied he seeks nuclear weapons. But he gives no such assurances about exploding a nuclear device.

In a series of coups which have subsequently come to light to the embarrassment of the West, Pakistan obtained ultra-secret nuclear technology designs from the Anglo - Dutch - German research institute at Almelo in Holland. It also obtained equipment and raw materials for a huge gas centrifuge at Kahuta, near Islamabad, a uranium fuel fabrication plant near Karachi, and two pilot plants outside Rawalpindi. These plants variously produced plutonium 239 and uranium 235, essential ingredients for nuclear weapons or explosive devices. But these events alerted western governments and Pakistan is finding it increasingly difficult to obtain its nuclear supplies. Last summer the Canadian authorities intercepted a complaint from Islamabad to a Montreal supplier: "All the suppliers have stopped sending us goods and have put restrictions on them. We have to find other channels.”

In seeking these new channels, Pakistani industrial

spies apparently had recourse to the United States commerce department’s “denial list” — the blacklist of individuals and companies banned from dealing in sensitive materials which also serves as a smugglers’ Who’s Who. That is how Sarfraz Mir came to meet Albert Goldberg of the National Tronics Company in Manhattan.

Goldberg, who also runs the International Affiliate Company from the same address, was once listed as an importer-exporter of “dolls, toys, low priced clothing and other similar articles.” But he also took flyers in “other exportations” — of sensitive material. He was found out and put on the denial list on two occasions, 1972 and 1976. The later ban was lifted in 1979. Thereafter, according to his lawyer, Goldberg advertised internationally his willingness to supply electronic equipment. Nine months ago Mir turned up at Goldberg’s office. He announced himself as head of S. J. Enterprises with offices in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. Their first deal was for a small consignment of electrical equipment. Then Mir wanted zirconium.

Goldberg, as broker, says he was happy to oblige. He

obtained 50001 b of the metal from Teledyne Wah-Chang ore processing plant at Albany, Oregon. The deal between the two American parties was perfectly legitimate. But somewhere along the line — and the authorities refuse to say who tipped them off — the division of the commerce department which supervises the export of sensitive material discovered the zirconium was bound for Pakistan. Federal agents tailed the consignment to Kennedy Airport.

It was delivered to Salauddin Mufti, a senior passenger service executive of P.1.A., the airline owned by the Pakistan Government. Goldberg said he met Mufti at the airport the Saturday of the shipment to discuss insurance. Asked if Mufti was aware of the contents of the wooden crates, Goldberg said: "I presume he knew.”

Customs agents seized the shipment that Saturday before it could be loaded on to an aircraft. Twelve crates contained zirconium bars. Three others were crammed with commercial directories.

Next day federal marshals with a search warrant, raided Goldberg’s office in Manhattan and seized his files. The authorities have not yet decided whether to refer the matter to a federal grand jury or to allow the commerce department to deal with it in an administrative way.