In the midst of the international row over alleged black market nuclear proliferation, terrorism expert Dr Rohan Gunaratna said none of the parties implicated in a transaction implicating Malaysian company Scomi have committed any clear offence.

"The materials of the company were provided to a government (Libya) and not to a terrorist group. The company (Scomi Precise Engineering, or Scope) should not be subjected to any punishment," he said, when contacted yesterday.

Last week, US President George W Bush accused Malaysia of being involved in black market nuclear proliferation because of the Scope deal, but his statements were tempered yesterday by another high-ranking US government official.

US Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton has since absolved Malaysia and Scomi of blame, saying that the company may not have known where the components were bound for.

Similarly, Gunaratna said Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan should not be penalised as he had transferred nuclear technology to governments, with or without the implicit approval of the Pakistani government, and not to any rogue organisation.

"Abdul Qadeer (photo) has done a lot for Pakistan. He is a national hero there but of course, he is painted in a negative light by the United States," he said.

Gunaratna also pointed out that Pakistan is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the international arms control agreement which prohibits the five acknowledged nuclear-weapon states (the US, Russia, United Kingdom, France, and China) from transferring nuclear weapons or their technology to other countries.

States that are not signatories to the NPT are Cuba, Israel, India and Pakistan.

"Lots of governments have violated the NPT. Israel, for instance, is an undeclared nuclear power and has built various devices. So Pakistan and India cannot be blamed," he said.

"The US itself has continued to experiment with nuclear weapons and I would be highly surprised if Russia's nuclear programme has come to a complete halt."

'No investigations'

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan authorities are not pursuing any investigation into the background of Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir (right), described as the middleman in Scope deal.

Contacted today, an official at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Kuala Lumpur said at present, no investigations have been ordered to trace Tahir's family members or his connections in the country.

"We don't know when he left Sri Lanka or if he still has any roots there. What we have heard is that he has been shuttling between Malaysia and Dubai," said the official, who declined to be named.

"From our inquiries, he is believed to be still in Malaysia and has been interrogated by authorities here."

Responding to rumours that Tahir, also known as BSA Tahir, may not be a Sri Lankan national, the official said the businessman had been travelling on a Sri Lankan passport.

"We know that he carries a Sri Lankan passport but it is not confirmed whether the passport is authentic," he said, adding that his government did not have any other documents to verify Tahir's nationality.

"We know that he was born in south India but his family moved to Kandy when he was five years of age," he added.

Gunaratna, meanwhile, said Tahir is believed not to be a Sri Lanka native although he had lived and worked for a number of years in Sri Lanka.

"We don't know what is his background. He was not a public figure in Sri Lanka and he has no criminal record. No one knows about his activities before this," he said.

Tahir's presence in Malaysia could not be confirmed by the police.

Dubai deal

Tahir first came into the media spotlight after United States and British intelligence agencies identified him as the major operative for Abdul Qadeer who has confessed to selling nuclear know-how and hardware to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

The businessman brokered a deal with Scomi to set up Scope, a subsidiary company, in 2001 to produce centrifuge components for a Dubai-based company, Gulf Technical Industries LLC .

Scope became mired in controversy after European officials intercepted a Libya-bound ship last October and seized five containers labelled with the company's name. The centrifuge parts in the containers were said to be destined for use in Libya's uranium-enrichment programme.

The case attracted further controversy in Malaysia because the controlling interest in Scomi is held by another Malaysian company Kaspadu, whose largest shareholder is Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's son, Kamaluddin Abdullah.

In a report yesterday, the Asian Wall Street Journal said another major shareholder of Kaspadu was Tahir's Malaysian wife, Nazimah Syed Majid. She divested her 13.75 percent shareholding in Scomi last month.