Prosecutors in Germany have confirmed that one of the directors of a German company suspected of supplying aluminium tubes to North Korea's nuclear programme has been detained for questioning.
The announcement comes after weekly magazine Der Spiegelsaid in its issue due to be published on Monday that 22 tonnes of aluminium tubes, essential in the manufacture of enriched uranium, were loaded onto a French ship in Hamburg in early April just as the German federal government vetoed the shipment.
The state prosecutor in the southwestern city of Stuttgart also confirmed that an investigation into a local firm suspected of contravening foreign trade regulations had been opened.
The German government alerted the French authorities to the shipment, who ordered the ship's captain to unload the containers in Egypt.
Officially the tubes were on their way to a Chinese aeronautics company, but according to Der Spiegel, Berlin believes this company was a front for North Korea. The German firm's business contact was a North Korean national, it said.
On Thursday, in the first direct high-level contact between the United States and North Korea since the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear programme erupted last October, North Korea confirmed it possessed nuclear weapons.
AFP