Nuclear weapons blueprint 'shared among smuggling ring'

Caroline Gammell
London Telegraph
Monday, June 16, 2008

Blueprints for advanced nuclear weapons were found on computers belonging to an international smuggling ring and may have been shared among "rogue" states, it has been claimed.
The files included designs for a sophisticated compact nuclear device which could be fitted onto a ballistic missile.

The sensitive information was discovered on heavily encrypted computers in Switzerland and destroyed, but there are fears that the designs could have passed into the wrong hands.

Former UN arms inspector David Albright, an authority on the now defunct smuggling ring run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, said the information may have been leaked some time ago.

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"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," he warned.

Mr Albright said the network might have given the blueprints to Iran or North Korea: "They both faced struggles in building a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop their ballistic missiles and these designs were for a warhead that would fit."

The warnings came in his report which was due to be published this week - but was leaked to the Washington Post - after years spent investigating Khan.

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