Experts fear nuke secrets on market

ZURICH, Switzerland, May 31 (UPI) -- Experts say they fear nuclear bomb blueprints may be on sale on the world black market following disclosure of a Swiss smuggling investigation.

The Swiss government, believed to be acting under U.S. pressure, recently revealed that it had secretly destroyed around 30,000 documents from the home and computer of a Swiss engineer suspected of being a key figure in the nuclear smuggling ring run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The network is known to have trafficked nuclear materials and knowledge to Iran, Libya and North Korea and it is feared that there may still be other copies of the documents on the black market, reported The Guardian Saturday.

"We know that copies were made. ... Both U.S. intelligence and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog) had been pursuing this with great urgency and diligence. But what happened to the other copies that (Swiss engineer Urs Tinner) made? It is worrisome that there are other plans floating around somewhere out there," Mark Fitzpatrick at the British-based International Institute of Strategic Studies told The Guardian.