KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21: Malaysia declined to say on Saturday what will happen to the man police say confessed to a web of dealings with Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, including selling nuclear centrifuges to Iran.
Malaysian police released a report on Friday detailing evidence from Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, the suspected middleman in illicit nuclear parts trade.
In the report, Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan now resident in the Malaysian capital, spoke of a three million dollars sale to Iran of nuclear centrifuge parts made in Malaysia and how Dr Khan arranged the shipment of enriched uranium to Libya.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar brushed off questions on Saturday about what was next for 44-year-old Tahir, labelled by Washington as Dr Khan's "deputy".
Though the businessman remains free in the country, a Malaysian intelligence source said on Friday he had left his house but remained in the capital Kuala Lumpur.
Syed Hamid told reporters police would handle any US government inquiries on Abu Tahir.
"Let the police handle all these things," Syed Hamid said at a news conference, declining further questions on the issue.
Abu Tahir told police of cash-filled briefcases left in a Dubai apartment and meetings in Casablanca, Morocco, Dutch-design nuclear centrifuge units airlifted from Pakistan to Libya and machine shop parts Tripoli bought from Italy and Spain.
He named British and Swiss nationals, detailed Dr Khan's contact-building from Germany and Switzerland to Turkey and South Africa and described how a consultant of his worked at Malaysian firm Scope on a contract to make centrifuge parts.
Police have absolved the company of any wrongdoing. The firm is part of publicly listed Scomi Group Bhd, which is controlled by the Malaysian prime minister's son, Kamaluddin Abdullah, and two other investors.
"I am delighted that the police have come out in the open about their investigation. This goes to show that whatever we have said has been totally vindicated and we hope we can put this issue to rest," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak told reporters on Saturday.
The 12-page police report, carrying handwritten additions and sentences blanked out by corrector fluid, included the political assessment that Malaysia had violated none of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.-Reuters