11 September 2004	Saturday	25 Rajab 1425

PRETORIA, Sept 10: Arrests in a weapons of mass destruction investigation in South Africa are linked to Libya's abandoned nuclear programme, the country said on Friday, playing down a connection to a global weapons black market.

South Africa made two fresh arrests this week which analysts linked to a worldwide weapons ring the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says spans more than 20 countries. A local engineer initially charged has been freed with no explanation.

"So far, the evidence that we have ... relates to the Libyan programme," said Abdul Minty, chairman of South Africa's Council for the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

"I don't think that we are one of the major ones (cogs in a global network). It would not be for us to say what the scale of it is," he said, seeking to bury media reports that saw a link to Iran.

Police on Wednesday arrested engineer Gerhard Wisser, 66, a German living in South Africa, and colleague Daniel Geiges, 65, after withdrawing charges against a third man, engineer Johan Meyer.

Authorities said the charges against them related to the exporting of a free-flowing lathe - a device that can be used for uranium enrichment - without permission. Mr Wisser was released on bail last month in Germany and allowed to leave the country, after he was arrested on suspicion of helping Libya to acquire atomic weapons technology in 2001.

The IAEA earlier this year named South Africa among the 20 states after Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed to leaking nuclear secrets to countries under embargo, including Iran, North Korea and Libya.

In the first media briefing since this week's arrests, Mr Minty was tight-lipped about the scope of the South African probe. -Reuters