British firm accused of still making landmines
Date: 13-May-02
Country: UK
"The allegations are being investigated. This is an area that the government takes very seriously," a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters after BBC radio aired the charges.
The BBC and anti-landmine campaign group Landmine Action accused PW Defence Limited, a firm based in Derbyshire, of offering to sell trip-wire activated fragmentation grenades to an undercover reporter in London last month.
But the company, a subsidiary of the Chemring Group , said the report was unfounded.
"We utterly reject the allegations. We have long since ceased manufacture of these things...and we hold no stocks of them either," spokesman Jonathan Roper told Reuters.
Chemring said later in a statement it had clearly told the BBC before the broadcast it had not made fragmentation grenades since the Ottawa convention banning landmines was signed in 1997, and accused the organisation of simply ignoring the truth.
"Chemring regards the BBC's broadcast as misleading and inaccurate and is discussing matters with its lawyers," the statement said.