Germany probes 50 firms that sold nuclear equipment to Iran - Haaretz

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Fri., November 23, 2007 Kislev 13, 5768

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		The Bushehr nuclear reactor, which Iran claims is being used to produce energy for civilian use only. (AP)

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Last update - 10:44 22/11/2007

Germany probes 50 firms that sold nuclear equipment to Iran

By Benjamin Weinthal

Tags: Iran, Germany, Vero, Israel

German customs police have uncovered in recent years 50 German companies that sold Iran equipment to finish building its nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

Coordinating this smuggling operation was a Berlin-based front company called Vero, headed by Dimitry Solotarev, an Armenian Jew with dual German and Russian citizenship. The value of the equipment transfered to Iran is estimated at $150 million. And that, Potsdam's public prosecutor told Haaretz, is evidently "just the tip of the iceberg."

Iran claims that the Bushehr power plant it is building with the help of Russian engineers is intended for civilian purposes. However, Western intelligence agencies suspect Iran is planning to manufacture nuclear weapons there. Iran's continued uranium enrichment to be used in the reactor was among the reasons the United Nations imposed economic sanctions.

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Iran is on Germany's list of countries to which it is illegal to export nuclear know-how. Solotarev's company disguised the sale to Iran by claiming it was supplying the equipment to a Russian nuclear reactor in Rostov.

Customs investigators discovered that between 10 and 12 German companies knew they were transfering equipment to Iran. In 2005, a German court sentenced three directors of a company that supplied a unique crane for the reactor's construction to three years' probation.

Solotarev was in Russia when customs officers raided Vero's offices in 2004, and has not returned to Germany since

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1.	News? Armenian?	05:22	\|	Shual	22/11/07

2.	Jonathan S... see, we told them	05:41	\|	Lynn	22/11/07

3.	"Investigating"? Ha. Who does Germany think they are fooling?	07:31	\|	Dr. L. Brnd	22/11/07

4.	shame on Germany	08:04	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	22/11/07

5.	nuke Berlin	08:22	\|	harry truman	22/11/07

6.	Shock	10:09	\|	european	22/11/07

7.	# 3	10:19	\|	JJ	22/11/07

8.	ABSURD, PARTISAN CLAIM	10:22	\|	PARIS	22/11/07

9.	STALIN`S TRUISM	10:55	\|	SM	22/11/07

10.	in 1973 Germany denied US planes permission to land	11:10	\|	Yom Kippur	22/11/07

11.	Germany accomplice of nuclear Iran for 20 years	11:13	\|	Jonathan S	22/11/07

12.	Iran continues and we talk	11:17	\|	in the meantime	22/11/07

13.	How Germany helped the mullahs	11:40	\|	Jonathan S	22/11/07

14.	3 years probation, that`ll really stop them!	11:45	\|	don	22/11/07

15.	No, JJ #3, NO other nation has this pattern of conduct...or motiv	11:54	\|	Dr. L. Brnd	22/11/07

16.	Money talks, people mumble	12:09	\|	Motic	22/11/07

17.	Motic	12:53	\|	JP	22/11/07

18.	Dr. L. Brnd	13:00	\|	JP	22/11/07

19.	cjk 4	16:07	\|	realism	22/11/07

20.	Question	17:34	\|	european	22/11/07

21.	German newspapers should educate their public about this payback.	23:07	\|	NEVER AGAIN	22/11/07

22.	"Smuggling operation" ... "illegal to export" ... "disguised"	00:22	\|	Axel	23/11/07

23.	realism	00:33	\|	Axel	23/11/07

24.	For European about German weapons	01:26	\|	Jonathan S	23/11/07

25.	Haaretz is a German owned newspaper	05:40	\|	readers beware	23/11/07

26.	Germans helped Iraq; now Iran. Treat Jews like Idiots	11:22	\|	Elly	23/11/07

27.	# 26	12:36	\|	Axel	23/11/07

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