A British businessman accused of helping Libya's Colonel Gaddafi's secret nuclear programme had previously been investigated by British authorities for exporting potential atomic bomb equipment to Pakistan, reports The Times, London.
"Peter Griffin, a 68-year-old grandfather, is accused in a report sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency by the Malaysian police of helping Colonel Gaddafi to design an uranium enrichment workshop that could be used for nuclear weapons or nuclear power, as well as training technicians and acquiring components. He denies any wrongdoing," the article said.
Griffin, an engineer from Swansea, lives in a £500,000 villa on the French Riviera protected by electronic gates, video cameras, high walls and woodland, the paper disclosed.
"The Times can disclose that he has been known to the British authorities since the late 1970s, when he was investigated as part of a network helping Pakistan's clandestine efforts to become the Muslim world's first nuclear power," it said.
The article said that according to officials in Islamabad at the time, the secret project was part-funded by Colonel Gaddafi, who sent millions of dollars to Pakistan on condition that he was given access to the country's atomic weapons capability. There is, however, no evidence that Griffin received any money from Colonel Gaddafi.
Griffin's name emerged again last month when US President President George W Bush denounced a black market in nuclear technology created by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue scientist known as the father of Pakistan's atom bomb.
The paper says the Malaysian police report claims Griffin designed a workshop to make centrifuges and arranged for eight Libyan technicians to travel to Spain for training in the use of specialist lathes. Colonel Gaddafi was acknowledged to be close to developing a nuclear bomb when he agreed publicly in December to drop his weapons of mass destruction programme.
Speaking from his villa, Griffin said the Malaysian police report had been misinterpreted, and threatened to launch defamation actions for "lies, damned lies and statistics".
He also hoped to issue a statement in the coming week. "I've got both feet on the ground," he said. "I'm not answering questions with the press. I hope one day to be able to give interviews and sell my memoirs and make some money on this."
There is no suggestion that Griffin or his son were breaking the law. Chris Mills, a solicitor with Clyde & Co, of Dubai, said that Paul Griffin was "obviously quite distressed" since he had "no knowledge at all" of any Libya-bound shipment.
"What Paul thinks is that someone has been using his company name in order to transship goods through Dubai," Mills said. Paul Griffin suspected that he and his company had been "set up . . . to take the fall if this all went wrong, as it has done," Mills said.
