Denver Post January 13, 2004
Arrest at DIA illuminates nuke technology fears
By Jim Hughes
An Israeli man suspected of illegally selling a Pakistani company technology that can be used to build nuclear weapons should be set free pending his trial, a federal magistrate in Denver ruled Monday.
Asher Karni was arrested Jan. 2 at Denver International Airport on his way to a family ski vacation in Summit County.
Karni, 50, is accused by prosecutors in Washington, D.C., of shipping 200 U.S.-made switches that can be used to detonate nuclear bombs to a Pakistani company called Pakland PME Corp. According to its website, the Islamabad-based company is a dealer of high-tech equipment.
The devices in Karni's case, called triggered spark gaps, are electrical switches that create rapid-fire electronic pulses. In the medical field, they are used to destroy kidney stones, but they also can be used to detonate nuclear weapons.
Because of that, selling them to countries that produce weapons of mass destruction, such as Pakistan, requires a permit from the federal government.
Karni, who lives in Cape Town, South Africa, had no such permit, according to court records. He bought the switches from a Massachusetts company through a New Jersey company, then re-exported them to Pakistan by way of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, according to an affidavit.
Experts said his case is made more ominous by Pakistan's suspected role in selling nuclear technology to nations such as Libya, Iran and North Korea.
A New York Times report last week alleging Pakistani involvement in illegal arms trading partly relied on a sales brochure bearing a Pakistani government stamp that had been circulated in other countries.
That brochure came from a company separate from Pakland PME. Company officials at Pakland could not be reached for comment. Pakistani government officials have denied any role in spreading nuclear secrets.
Still, the potential trade in weapons of mass destruction makes Pakistan one of the most worrisome countries in the world, security analysts said.
"In the future, if a terrorist like Osama bin Laden or one of his allies were able to deliver and explode a nuclear device in the United States, the chances are very high that that device would have either come from or have been built with the assistance of Pakistanis," said Rick Fisher, a fellow with the Center for Security Policy in Washington.
Karni's arrest is the latest indication of the value American technology has to other nations seeking to advance their weapons programs, said June Teufel Dreyer, a University of Miami political scientist and national security expert.
Last year, several people of Chinese descent, including Lee Yu of Fort Collins, were investigated for diverting sensitive technology to China. Yu, who has not been indicted and said the investigation was the result of a mix-up, was suspected of buying high-speed cameras for a Chinese weapons laboratory.
"Apparently, there's almost nothing that you can't convert to weapons use," Teufel Dreyer said.
Considered "dual-use technology," devices known to be useful in the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction are tightly regulated by the Commerce Department.
But the international system of obtaining and diverting such technology is a "global unseen octopus" that is difficult to police, Fisher said.
"Their reach extends everywhere," he said.
To avoid detection by U.S. export regulators, the buyers of dual- use technology usually rely on intermediaries, said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project, a nonprofit in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation around the world.
"This is a classic case," he said of Karni's arrest. "Typically, reputable companies are reluctant to sell these sorts of things to countries like Pakistan. So Pakistan would use an intermediary who would pretend that he is buying the product for a legitimate purpose, then he would divert it. He takes the risk, of course, because he's the person that's breaking the law."
Karni, an Orthodox Jew, was welcomed in the courtroom Monday by his wife, one of his daughters and a handful of friends, including the rabbi from his synagogue in Cape Town, who flew to Denver over the weekend to testify at Monday's detention hearing.
"I know him as a very religious and honest man," the rabbi, Menachim Mendel Popack, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Watanabe.
Chagie Rubin, principal of the Hillel Academy of Denver, came to show his support, he said. Rubin is the former rabbi of a synagogue in Johannesburg, South Africa, and said he knew Karni when he lived there.
"I believe this whole thing is a misunderstanding," he said. "He'll be able to show clearly that none of these charges have any substance."
Karni was selling the switches to hospitals in Pakistan, Rubin said.
Because prosecutors asked for time to consider appealing the ruling allowing Karni's release, Watanabe stayed the release on $75,000 cash bond until Thursday.
Even if the government is able to prove that Karni is a salesman in the international black market in nuclear arms, he probably will yield little in terms of intelligence to American officials, said John Pike, a security analyst with the website Global Security.
"The trail goes really cold really fast, precisely to avoid an arrest like this from ... getting farther up the food chain," he said.
© Copyright 2004, Denver Post
