Swiss prosecutors will opt to avoid a public trial for three Swiss men suspected of giving nuclear weapons technology and supplies to a rogue network in Pakistan, a newspaper reported on Sunday, The Associated Press reported.
The case is politically sensitive for Switzerland and the US because of alleged national security implications, the men’s alleged CIA ties, and repeated instances of evidence being destroyed. It involves charges of violating Swiss nonproliferation laws. The Federal Prosecutors Office in Bern was quoted as saying it plans to use a shortened procedure to require a penalty but no trial if the nation’s top criminal court doesn’t object and the men plead guilty, the Zurich weekly newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported.
Bern prosecutors’ office did not comment immediately.
Urs Tinner, his brother Marco and their father Friedrich have been under investigation by Swiss authorities for almost a decade for supplying equipment and technical knowhow to the network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2011.
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