Swiss court sentences three network affiliates of Pak nuclear scientist AQ Khan - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The highest court in Switzerland has sentenced a family of Swiss engineers accused of helping Libya in its failed efforts years ago to build up a nuclear weapons programme. Friedrich Tinner, 70, and his two sons Marco and Urs - are reportedly network affiliates of 'disgraced' Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, reports The Express Tribune. However, the three were free to leave the Federal Court of Justice in Lausanne because of the length of time they had already served in detention and a plea bargaining agreement. The case began in the 1990s, when the Tinners started working with the global nuclear smuggling network of Khan- who is know as the 'Father of the Pakistani atom bomb', who supplied Libya with nuclear weapons technology. Urs, 46, and Marco, 43, received sentences of 50 months and 41 months respectively, while Friedrich was given a 24-month suspended sentence for offences under the War Material Act. Swiss prosecutors launched a case against Marco and Urs in October 2004 and against their father the following year. The brothers spent three and four years in jail respectively awaiting trial, while their father was incarcerated for nearly two years. Before sentencing, the defendants refused to talk about their collaboration with the CIA, which began when Urs contacted the U.S. intelligence agency in 2003. The information they supplied pointed authorities to a German cargo ship that was stopped in the Mediterranean en route to Libya , media reports said. Five containers filled with sensitive material were seized, effectively blocking Libya 's nuclear ambitions. The strange case was the subject of a book published last year by two U.S. journalists, Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, called "Fallout", which tracks the way the U.S. secretly penetrated Khan's network to prevent Libya and Iran from obtaining nuclear secrets.