LONDON, Jan 13: A four-year investigation into a business associate of Dr A.Q. Khan and allegedly a key player in a network selling nuclear weapons components appears to have been quietly dropped, according to a report in the Sunday Times.

The report said Peter Griffin, an engineer who ran an export business from Dubai, was suspected of helping to supply Libya’s atomic weapons programme.

The Revenue and Customs inquiry into Griffin spanned a dozen countries and believed to have cost millions. A file on the case was passed to the customs’ prosecution office last year.

Speaking in detail for the first time, Griffin told authors of the report that his lawyers had been informed two weeks ago that the case against him had been scrapped.

“There’s no bloody evidence, that’s why. They have sent people to South Africa, to America, to Dubai, all over the world. It’s gone before the [Revenue and Customs] director of prosecutions who said, ‘We don’t have a chance of winning this’.”

The report also alleges that Griffin was a key member of the alleged A.Q. Khan network. Griffin denies involvement in any weapons programme. Griffin has never been prosecuted.

In 2000 Atif Amin, a customs investigator, uncovered evidence that Khan’s network was supplying Libya but he was pulled off the investigation by MI6. His home was raided last month by the police who suspect he leaked customs reports.