In 2001 Mr. Tahir signed a contract with a Malaysian company, Scomi Precision Engineering, to supply centrifuge components.
The Libyans may have been as surprised as anybody when the parts - advanced centrifuge components for enriching uranium, a crucial step in making nuclear bombs - showed up in Tripoli's port.
He was referring to the Scomi Precision Engineering installation here in Shah Alam, which made centrifuge components found on a ship seized last October on its way to Libya.
In 2001 a Dubai company, General Technical Industries, approached Scomi Group, a chemical, oil and gas trading and manufacturing company, with an order for 14 centrifuge components.
The seizure in October of the cargo of a German-owned ship, the BBC China, which was carrying centrifuge components to Libya, has been the initiative's biggest single success to date.
The Malaysian report detailed an undertaking called Project Machine Shop 1001, an effort to build a manufacturing plant in Libya capable of making centrifuge components that could not be obtained from outside the country.
Mr. Griffin also supplied an Italian-made furnace used in the refining of certain centrifuge components, Mr. Tahir said.
The most pressing question remaining is the origin of the traces of highly enriched uranium found on centrifuge components in Iran.
The international agency said the seals had covered centrifuge components, manufacturing equipment and two cylinders containing uranium hexaflouride.
The informant reported that the Iraqi government had long since canceled its uranium enrichment program and that the C.I.A. could buy centrifuge components if it wanted to.