German guilty in SAfrica nuclear secrets case

PRETORIA, Sept 4 (Reuters) A German engineer was given a suspended 18-year jail sentence by a South African court today after pleading guilty to involvement in a global black market in atomic weapons technology.

Gerhard Wisser, resident in South Africa, was accused of having ties to a network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced father of Pakistan's atomic bomb who has admitted giving nuclear secrets to nations under international embargo.

The case was part of an international effort to crack what prosecutors said was a trade network that helped Libya, North Korea and Iran skirt sanctions in their quest for nuclear technology.

In a deal with prosecutors, 68-year-old Wisser pleaded guilty to forgery and to manufacturing and exporting autoclaves and other components that could be used in nuclear weapons programmes in Pakistan and Libya.

Three other charges were set aside.

As part of the sentence, Wisser will serve three years under house arrest, the court said.

He also agreed to forfeit 2.8 million euros and 6 million rand as proceeds from his crimes and to cooperate with authorities.

''I fully agree with the conditions ... yes I understand the charges,'' Wisser told the High Court judge, Joop Labuschagne.

Wisser's lawyer, Ben Bredenkamp, said he was happy with the outcome of the case.

''I'm very pleased because he's not going to jail. He's got all these suspended sentences and the correctional supervision, which is house arrest, so I'm obviously very pleased about that,'' he said.

South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) agreed Wisser's sentence be suspended for five years.

''The NPA regards the conviction as a significant step in combating nuclear proliferation networks,'' the NPA said in a statement shortly after the plea deal was entered in a court in Pretoria.

South Africa, which voluntarily dismantled its own nuclear weapons programme before the end of the apartheid era in 1994, was among 20 countries named by the United Nations' atomic agency as recipients of Khan's atomic secrets.

Swiss citizen Daniel Geiges, an engineer who was charged along with Wisser, is due to appear in court on September 21 to face similar charges. A third man arrested in the case, Johan Meyer, turned state witness.

REUTERS RS KN2100