High-tech precision instrument maker Mitutoyo Corp. issued a qualified denial Tuesday of knowingly engaging in the illegal export of machinery that could be converted for use in nuclear weapons production.
"I believe we were not aware of any illegality," Mitutoyo President Kazusaku Tezuka, 67, told a news conference at the company's head office in Kawasaki.
The company, which was searched by police the previous day, is suspected of exporting three-dimensional measuring machines that can be used to make centrifuges for enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, to China and Thailand around 2001 and 2002 without government authorization.
The machines can be used to measure with great precision the size and shape of machinery parts and control centrifuge rotors.
"We will seek to clarify the facts," Tezuka said, without giving details about the investigative steps the company would take or when they would be completed.
He also declined to answer many questions, citing investigations in progress. The news conference ended after 15 minutes.