A court on Friday sentenced a Dutch businessman and friend of nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to 12 months in prison, eight of which were suspended, for shipping equipment used for uranium enrichment to Pakistan between 1999 and 2002.
Henk Slebos, who befriended A Q Khan while they were students at Delft in western Holland in the 1960s, was convicted of illegally exporting strategic goods by a court in Alkmaar. He was also ordered to personally pay a fine of 100,000 euros (120,000 dollars) and two of his companies were fined 97,500 euros.
The prosecution last month had asked that Slebos be sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined 100,000 euros.
He has not denied the shipments of equipment for uranium enrichment, but he denied the exports were illegal, saying that was a matter of opinion, in a documentary aired on Dutch public television in early November.