Japan's Mitutoyo denies exporting technology with nuclear weapons applications
02.15.2006, 04:51 AM

AFX News Limited

TOKYO (AFX) - Mitutoyo Corp, a maker of precision equipment, denied that it illegally exported machines that can be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

The police searched the head office and plants of Mitutoyo on Monday on suspicion that the company exported two three-dimensional (3D) gauges, one each to China and Thailand, without clearance from the government here.

One of the firm's gauges was reportedly found in Libya.

'It is our understanding that we have not exported high-performance gauges which are subject to restrictions,' said a spokesman for Mitutoyo.

The police suspect that the firm attached false labels to the 3D gauges to disguise them as low-performance equipment not subject to export controls, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported, quoting police sources.

The spokesman declined to comment on the report because, he said, it concerned a matter at the center of a police investigation.

The police suspect that Mitutoyo exported the two 3D gauges in 2001 without permission from the trade ministry.

They were the same model that the International Atomic Energy Agency found in Libya when it inspected nuclear facilities there in 2003 and 2004, newspapers here have reported.

Libya is believed to have obtained the machine through the black market after the company exported it to Malaysia about 2001, the reports said.

However, the two machines that led to the police raids were not sold to a third country or used for military purposes, the reports said.