A Sri Lankan businessman who helped Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan build a secret network for supplying nuclear material and equipment has committed no crime and is free to leave Malaysia, a police official said.

Inspector General of Police Mohamed Bakri Omar (left) late Saturday said businessman BSA Tahir was not under arrest and his passport had not been confiscated.

"If he wants to leave (the country), I cannot restrict him. He has not been charged and his passport has not been impounded. The police just investigate and we have done that. He has not been arrested," he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency in the southern Malaysia's Johor state.

Police had earlier questioned Tahir, who has permanent resident status in Malaysia, over Khan's nuclear network activities.

On Friday, police released a 12-page report of Tahir's statement in which he said Khan sold nuclear centrifuge parts to Iran in the mid-1990s and sent enriched uranium to Libya in 2001.

Khan, a disgraced one-time national hero credited with making Pakistan a nuclear power, confessed this month to leaking nuclear secrets. He was later pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf.

Tahir was named by US President George W. Bush as "deputy" to Khan in an international nuclear trafficking ring.

Still in Malaysia

Mohamed Bakri said Tahir was still in the country and would make him available to the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency if its investigators wanted to question him.

"The police are more than willing to assist and we are not imposing anything. The IAEA can interview him if they want to," he said.

Mohamed Bakri hinted that Tahir could face legal action in Malaysia on grounds that he misled local company, Scomi Precision Engineering (Scope) to produce the centrifuge parts that could be used in making weapons-grade uranium.

US and British intelligence services had told Malaysia that the components manufactured by Scope had been found on a ship bound for Libya last October.

When Tahir placed the orders, he said the parts would be used in the petroleum and gas industry.

The company is owned by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's son Kamaluddin, and Malaysia has strenuously denied that either the firm or the country was knowingly engaged in the nuclear arms black market. - AFP