German police have arrested the export chief of a company suspected of supplying foreign states with equipment for use in developing missiles, prosecutors said today.
"According to our current information, the firm supplied foreign states since at least 2001-2, through spy organisations involved in procurement, with vibration-testing equipment that was needed for developing missile technology," the federal prosecutor's office said.
A spokeswoman confirmed that more than one country was involved but declined further comment.
The export director of the unnamed company, based in the former East German state of Thuringia, was arrested yesterday, a day after searches of the firm's office and two private homes.
In a statement, the Federal Court of Justice identified the man as 64-year-old Peter K., a German from the Suhl area of Thuringia.
The investigation is the latest in a series of German probes into the shipment of sensitive technology to third countries.
Federal prosecutors announced investigations last year into two Germans and a Swiss citizen suspected of helping Libya obtain nuclear weapons technology. They said another German was also being investigated for supplying nuclear arms equipment to a foreign state, which press reports named as Iran.
It was not clear if the latest probe was related to these earlier cases.
The new investigation coincided with revelations this week that German officials had failed to spot in time the export of a crane to an Iranian company suspected of involvement in Iran's missile production programme.
By the time they realised the buyer was blacklisted, the crane was already well on its way to Iran aboard a Norwegian-chartered ship. A spokesman for the charter company confirmed it was delivered to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas today.