Police in Japan have arrested two men suspected of illegally selling military parts to Iran.

Detectives in Tokyo said two executives of Sunbeam KK, a company which went bankrupt two years ago, had breached Japan's Foreign Trade Control Law by shipping parts for hand-held rocket launchers to Iran in 1995.

Japan forbids military-related exports to Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea.

Sunbeam KK is accused of having sold more than three thousand precision sights to Iran, in a deal worth around thirty thousand dollars.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service