Swiss shredded nuke documents

Normally placid Switzerland has been caught up in uncharacteristic intrigue since the government announced that it secretly destroyed highly technical blueprints for producing nuclear weapons. At a press conference on May 23, President Pascal Couchepin said the documents had been shredded to prevent them from falling into terrorists' hands. "The information contained in these papers presented a considerable risk to the security of Switzerland and the international community as a whole," he said.

But that explanation has only enlivened controversy over who ultimately ordered the shredding, and to what end. "There are more questions about this affair than there are answers," says Ken Egli, an editor at the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

In 2004 Swiss authorities, acting on a tip from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), arrested engineer Friedrich Tinner and his sons Marco and Urs on the suspicion of helping to supply gas centrifuge parts for use in Libya's now abandoned nuclear weapons program. They allegedly acted between 2001 and 2003 through the trafficking ring operated by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atom bomb. Khan, under house arrest in Pakistan, last week claimed he'd been coerced into his 2004 confession to helping Libya, North Korea and Iran with nuclear weapons.

The tens of thousands of pages of blueprints and technical information, reportedly secured on Urs Tinner's property, were to be used as evidence against the Tinners, who are still incarcerated pending further investigation. Swiss authorities said the documents were shredded under IAEA's supervision on November 14, 2007. Contacted by TIME, IAEA's spokesperson refused to comment on its role or involvement in the affair. Couchepin too declined to answer further questions.

The official stonewalling has fueled speculation that the United States, and specifically the CIA, has pressured the Swiss government to destroy the documents to aid its own efforts to stop nuclear smuggling, whatever the effect on the Tinners' trials. "The decision to destroy evidence related to an ongoing investigation is highly unusual and has raised questions over the possibility of CIA involvement," Egli says, pointing out that during his press conference Couchepin conceded that the Swiss government had also blocked an investigation into charges levelled by the federal attorney that Urs Tinner was engaging in illegal actions for a foreign country.

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