Nuclear Whistleblower's Life Story Acquired By Ten10 Films And Le Boxeur Films For A New Series.

London-based Ten10 Films and Amsterdam-based Le Boxeur Films have acquired exclusive LIFE STORY rights to Frits Veerman, the whistleblower who was scapegoated and silenced for reporting the biggest theft of nuclear secrets in history.

In an exclusive interview published in the Financial Times Magazine this weekend, Veerman tells the story of how he worked for a British/German/Dutch uranium enrichment program in the 1970's and was a colleague and best friend of the infamous nuclear spy, Dr AQ Khan - a man the CIA called "more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden".

When Veerman discovered that Khan was a spy, he repeatedly reported Khan to the authorities but was ignored. This allowed Khan to escape with nuclear blue-prints and centrifuge parts stolen from his Amsterdam workplace. Khan went on to build Pakistan's nuclear bomb with the stolen data, and then sold the technology and know-how to North-Korea and Iran. Veerman was fired, scapegoated and for decades harassed by security agencies to keep silent.

The story has been developed by Ten10 Films and Le Boxeur Films into a limited series entitled "The Man Who Stole The Bomb", written by Nadeem Rajwani and produced by Joris van Wijk (Le Boxeur) and Tendeka Matatu (Ten10 Films).

Producer Joris van Wijk commented: "We're honoured that Frits has entrusted us with his remarkable story, I have had the privilege of getting to know him over the last six months, his relationship with Khan was one of a genuine friendship that was masterfully manipulated and spectacularly betrayed."

"The simple truth is that, had the powers that be paid more attention to Frits Veerman the world would be a safer place today,," added Matatu, "the story of how Frits Veerman became implicated in the most audacious theft of nuclear secrets in history, is genuine, tragic and incredible - it has all the elements for a riveting spy series"

col

Whistleblower Frits Veerman commented "I am thrilled that my story will be part of The Man Who Stole The Bomb and have enormous confidence in its creative team. That Khan got away with his espionage was a colossal failure of the Netherlands and US governments and their intelligence services - with horrible consequences. The series will show the general public what happened, to hopefully avoid it from happening again."

Development of "The Man Who Stole The Bomb"is currently being finalised and discussions have already commenced with potential financing partners.

Ten10 Films currently has other TV projects in development with Fremantle and Sony Pictures Television. Ten10 produced neo-noir thriller, Cold Harbour is due for release on Netflix in October.

Le Boxeur is newly set up by Van Wijk with a remit to develop and produce character driven series and features set against socially and politically relevant backgrounds.

Ten10 Films is represented by Steven Adams at Alta Global Media.

To post a comment, you must register and login.