BONN, West Germany -- The manager of a West German firm suspected of helping build a chemical weapons plant in Libya was in serious condition Friday, suffering from an overdose of sleeping pills and other chemicals, police said Friday.
Police said Imhausen-Chemie Manager Hans-Joachim Renner was found unconscious Thursday in a wooded area near the firm's headquarters in the southwestern German town of Lahr. The police spokesman said he had overdosed on sleeping pills and unidentified chemicals in an apparent suicide.
Authorities began investigating the firm last month following U.S. allegations the company helped construct a chemical weapons plant in Rabta, 35 miles southwest of the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
The investigation was initiated one week after regional authorities cleared the firm of charges it illegally exported restricted technology to Libya.
The West German government has been criticized, internally and internationally, for failing to crack down on the illegal export of sensitive technology to Libya and other Third World nations.
Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher rejected the accusations, telling the Bundestag, or parliament, Friday 'it is self-evident we do everything we possibly can to prevent a participation of German firms and German individuals in the production of these weapons of the devil.'
'We find it unbearable when Germans participate in the production of chemical weapons anywhere in the world,' he said.
But the leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party, Hans-Jochen Vogel, accused Chancellor Helmut Kohl of mishandling the affair. He said Kohl's response to the scandal consisted of 'a perfectly embarrassing mixture of helplessness, bullying and cover-up attempts.'
Allegations of German involvement in the Libyan plant -- raised privately by U.S. officials during Kohl's trip to Washington last November -- were first publicly reported in early January. Bonn at first angrily denied them, but later admitted its secret services had known about a possible German link for several months.
On Wednesday, the government conceded its secret services suspected as early as 1980 that German experts were helping build such an installation.
The Cabinet adopted new measures to halt the illegal export of sensitive chemical and biological technology, including increasing the maximum penalty for violators to 3 to 15 years imprisonment.
'We are ready to do anything that would not affect the basic aim of the German foreign trade laws to implement effective restrictions and controls,' Trade Minister Helmut Haussman told the Bundestag.
The export of sensitive technology to countries such as Libya, Pakistan and South Africa was one of the issues raised in talks in Bonn Monday between West German government officials and Secretary of State James Baker.
