Norway jails researcher who let Iranians use microscope

A German-Iranian researcher has been sentenced to eight months in prison for letting four Iranian PhD students use a microscope without a licence, breaking technology export and sanctions laws.

The breaches happened in late 2018 and early 2019, when the researcher allowed the students to use a scanning electron microscope at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) without a licence from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Judges at Oslo District Court sentenced him to eight months in prison, after reducing his sentence by four months because of “deficient routines” at NTNU’s department of mechanical engineering and production, such as a lack of clear guidelines or controls on use of the microscope, according to their ruling. He was expected to submit an appeal but, if that is unsuccessful, he is likely to serve half of his sentence behind bars, and half in the community, as long as he does not reoffend.

“The ruling in the case clearly expresses that [the researcher] has abused the trust inherent in his position by his actions and thereby deprived NTNU and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the opportunity to carry out export controls,” Olav Bolland, dean of the NTNU Faculty of Engineering, told Times Higher Education.

The researcher, who is currently working at a university in Qatar, may have helped advance Iran’s nuclear weapons programme by letting the students use the microscope to examine metal alloys with potential military applications, the judges said. His sentence is probationary and he did not react to the verdict when contacted by THE.

He told senior staff in advance about three of the four visiting students, but their unlicensed use of the equipment only became known when a colleague complained that the nanomechanical laboratory was too busy.

Senior staff then barred him from using the laboratory, told the police, and asked a large local law firm to investigate the circumstances, eventually concluding that he had breached his contract with the university.

The law firm, Simonsen Vogt Wiig, said in its report to the university that there was “a clear need to clarify which routines/guidelines apply to the reception of visitors, who can approve such visits, who will take care of the practicalities, etc”.

Professor Bolland said that since the case was uncovered the department had “worked actively to improve how we generally work with security, and we have worked on, among other things, routines and procedures to make it clear where the boundaries are with regard to export control”.

The Norwegian government is putting the finishing touches to national guidelines on research security, after universities warned its rules must keep step with those in the European Union.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com