Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 28, 1990 TAG: 9003280601
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
The sources, insisting on anonymity, said the arrests at London's Heathrow Airport followed a U.S.-British surveillance operation involving an attempt to smuggle "nuclear initiators," devices to trigger a nuclear weapon.
The Iraqis were arrested with a third person of British citizenship, and about four other people were arrested near London, the sources said. One of the three at Heathrow was about to board a flight to Baghdad, they said.
Dennis Shimkoski, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service, said U.S. officials had been working with British colleagues on the case for about 18 months.
He said he knew of five arrests in Britain, and that "electronic devices" were seized. He declined to give further details, saying the case was under sealed indictment in the United States.
The U.S. case had been presented to a district court in Southern California, Shimkoski said in a telephone interview from Washington.
The British government said one Iraqi was being deported because of attempted breaches of laws restricting the export of high technology. A second was to have been expelled, but turned out to have British citizenship, it said.
The Foreign Office would not link the deportations to the disclosure of the smuggling operation, and no government agency would officially confirm that such an operation had been attempted.
It said arrests were made after documentation was completed that freed the nuclear triggers from a Heathrow warehouse to be loaded on an Iraqi flight.
The devices were found in a cargo shed at the airport and had been due to be placed on an Iraqi airliner bound for Baghdad, it said.
It was not known whether Iraq has nuclear weapons capability, but it has been developing a long-range missile judged by some military analysts to be capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.
In 1981 the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed a nuclear reactor in Iraq that was nearing completion. Israel claimed the reactor would give Iraq nuclear weapons capability. Iraq insisted the installation was for peaceful use.
Earlier this month, Britain recalled its ambassador from Baghdad after the Iraqis hanged an Iranian-born journalist working for a British newspaper. Iraq accused the journalist, Farzad Bazoft, of spying.
by CNB