A court in Pakistan has freed disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan from house arrest, his lawyer says.
Mr Khan, who has been under tight restrictions since 2004, can now leave home and receive visitors but must still report to the government.
He must give 48 hours’ notice if he wants to leave Islamabad.
Mr Khan admitted transferring nuclear secrets to other countries in 2004 but was later pardoned by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
“The high court has declared him a free citizen,” lawyer Iqbal Jaffry told local television.
The Pakistani government says the restrictions that remain are for his own security.
Why is he not at The Hague? I guess it does go back to who knew what when and who profited…
Updated at: 1420 PST, Friday, February 06, 2009
ISLAMABAD: Celebrated nuclear scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan has said, “I am satisfied with the decision of the court, setting me free is a matter between me and the government, this has no connection with the US and added that after having received the decision, the situation would merge.â€
Talking to media at his residence after a court decision terminated his detention, set him free and allowed him freedom of expression, he said that he didn’t want to delve in the past incidents, he only wanted the development of the country, “I pray that the God save the country.†He said he would not get involved in politics, the world was against him, but he remained safe due to security.
Dr. Qadeer said that the God has already punished General (retd.) Pervez Musharraf, as he can’t freely come out on the roads today. When quizzed, he said that he would not take action against anybody for keeping him in detention. He said that he would be focusing on education and setting up of welfare organizations would be my top priority. He told that he couldn’t go to Karachi for condoling the deaths of his sister-in-law and niece, therefore, he would first of all go to Karachi and try going on Umra.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” -Henry David Thoreau
If one thing’s become clear over the last years, its that AQ Khan was a hub player in this scheme, but definitely powerful people on the supposed side of ‘good guys’ were not interested in shutting him down. The key to the whole Sibel Edmonds-related / Valerie Plame / Brewster Jennings / Scooter Libby situation is: There are a ton of very powerful cats around the world involved in trafficking nuclear technology, and AQ Khan was just playing a part in this transnational network.
The Tinners of Switzerland are another interesting case, as they appear to have been CIA cutouts. Plame’s agenda was to pretend to be a fixer for parts on this scene, and then feed it into the CIA. The agenda of Scooter Libby’s buddies was to keep the party rolling. (see Marc Rich, Viktor Bout, the bizarre Turkish ‘Ergkenon’ conspiracy, et al) The Turks, the Israelis, the Pakistanis, the Iranians, all of them were part of the interlocking scheme, and the conventional surface “these guys hate each other” took a backseat to “everyone wants to make money.”
Nuclear + Drugs + Human + Weapons trafficking = the Whole Ball of Wax.
Don’t believe the hype. If AQ Khan was so bad, lets see what Sibel Edmonds would say once that freakin gag order goes away (paging Mr Holder?!!).
–
Hongpong.com
• Britain joins demand for promises after court ruling
• Scientist released as part of deal with government
* Saeed Shah in Islamabad and Aidan Jones
* The Guardian, Saturday 7 February 2009
* Article history
The US and Britain have reacted angrily after AQ Khan, the Pakistani scientist accused of selling nuclear secrets, was freed from five years of house arrest in a court ruling in Islamabad.
Khan, lionised as the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, confessed in 2004 to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya. He was immediately pardoned by Pakistan but confined to his home under heavy guard. His freedom appears to have been won through a secret deal with the government, which was sanctified by the court.
Speaking to the Guardian after yesterday’s judgement, the metallurgist said he had no plans to travel abroad or take part in politics. Looking relaxed and well, the 72-year-old strolled in the front garden of his villa in Islamabad, which he shares with his Dutch wife and grand-daughter, playing with a pet dog and receiving wellwishers. “It’s a nice feeling, the worry is gone. I can lead a normal life now as a normal citizen. It’s a fine feeling,” he later said by telephone.
The celebrations did not extend to Washington and London, which have long sought to question Khan. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said she was “very much concerned” about Khan’s release. Gordon Duguid, a state department spokesman, said the US believed Khan “remains a serious proliferation risk”.
Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said Barack Obama wanted “assurances” from Pakistan the scientist would not be involved in nuclear proliferation.
In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said last night: “We continue to call on the Pakistani government to allow the [International Atomic Energy Agency] access to Mr Khan in order to seek information about his nuclear proliferation activities, in particular his supplying of secrets to Iran and North Korea.”
Khan’s release could affect the aid that Pakistan receives from the US, a leading member of Congress warned, with a $15bn (£10bn) proposed assistance package currently before lawmakers.
Howard Berman, who chairs the House foreign affairs committee, said: “The Pakistani government may in effect be giving him license to resume, perhaps directly, his past actions.
“Congress will take this into account as we review and create legislation on US-Pakistan relations and the circumstances under which US assistance is provided to Islamabad,” said Berman.
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“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” -Henry David Thoreau
older related thread with more stories in comments.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” -Henry David Thoreau
Reuters – “It is time for the international community to think whether to declare Pakistan a terrorist country,” Manish Tewari, the ruling Congress party spokesman said in New Delhi, in reference to the end from house arrest of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
“Defending him proves Pakistan as not only an exporter of terrorism, but has also given rise to doubts of certain countries, including (United States) America, that nuclear weapons could go into the hands of terrorists,” Tiwari told reporters.
I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader
ballsy LOL
07 Feb 2009 19:33:43 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Corrects to make clear it is Congress Party, not Indian government)
By Bappa Majumdar
NEW DELHI, Feb 7 (Reuters) – India’s Congress Party on Saturday said the international community should consider declaring Pakistan a terrorist state in light of the latter’s release of a scientist who sold nuclear secrets around the globe.
“It is time for the international community to think whether to declare Pakistan a terrorist country,” Manish Tewari, the Congress party spokesman said in New Delhi, in reference to the end from house arrest of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
India’s Congress Party rules in a coalition, and the call to the world community was from the party, not from the Indian government.
Khan, the man at the centre of the world’ most serious nuclear proliferation scandal, was released on Friday after five years of house arrest.
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“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” -Henry David Thoreau
PAKISTAN: Opening the A. Q. Khan Can of Worms
Analysis by Beena Sarwar
KARACHI, Feb 11 (IPS) – The release of Pakistani rogue nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, underlines major issues confronting Pakistan -and indeed the world – ranging from nuclear proliferation to governance, corruption, hypocrisy, and how public opinion is shaped by falsehoods.
Generally referred to, even by the international media, as ‘the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb’, A.Q. Khan’s role is in fact rather different from this popular perception.
It was the late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who, while foreign minister, famously declared in 1965 that “Pakistan will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, in order to develop a (nuclear) programme of its own’’.
As minister for mineral resources Bhutto got the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC, founded in 1954) to set up the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Sciences and Technology in 1960, sending hundreds of students abroad to study physics and other nuclear-related science disciplines.
“After the Chinese nuclear test in 1964, he concluded that if India would go nuclear Pakistan would have to follow the suit,” commented the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in a 2007 dossier on the Pakistan nuclear programme.
Pakistan’s traumatic military defeat in December 1971 – when the country’s eastern wing, aided by India, gained liberation to become Bangladesh – prompted Bhutto, by then president and chief martial law administrator, to prioritise the nuclear weapons programme.
In January 1972, Bhutto flew the country’s top scientists to Multan city in southern Punjab, tasking them with completing the project in three years.
Pakistan’s well-regarded monthly ‘Defence Journal’ detailed Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme in its cover story of May 2004, ‘Remembering Unsung Heroes: Munir Ahmed Khan’. The report terms Bhutto, the ‘political’ father, and A.Q. Khan’s boss, Munir Ahmed Khan, the ‘technical’ father of the bomb.
“Munir’s 40-year association with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna – as a member of its scientific staff, and later its board of governors, which he also chaired – was seen by his enemies as evidence of his questionable loyalty” to Pakistan, wrote the Independent, London in its obituary after Munir’s death in Vienna, in 1999.
These enemies included Khan who went out of his way to malign Munir, who kept an enigmatic silence.
“In truth, Munir and AQ represent two strands of thinking in Pakistan’s defence and foreign policy. Munir represented a dying generation who live in the hope that Pakistan will one day play an influential role in world affairs by maintaining friendships and alliances with the West. AQ, on the other hand, represents a growing constituency, which believes that the security interests of Western countries are incompatible with those of the Muslim world,” reads the obituary.
The obituary described Munir as a ‘’a patriot, a voice of reason who was committed to international safeguards for Pakistan’s nuclear technology, and who would despair whenever politicians reached for the nuclear card. But others in Pakistan’s nuclear establishment believe that he was against Pakistan acquiring bomb-making technology’’.
The Defence Journal article notes that Munir and PAEC “followed the path of silently pursuing the nuclear goal for Pakistan in line with the country’s stated policy of nuclear ambiguity… and insisted… that Pakistan’s nuclear programme was strictly for peaceful purposes’’.
Secondly, “because it was indeed a covert period, Qadeer was encouraged to pose as the Father of the Bomb, even though he was responsible for just one of 24 steps, each crucial to making nuclear weapons… Qadeer was used as a decoy to divert attention from the PAEC, where the real work was being done.”
The government used Khan, says the report, at the time of the India’s massive ‘Brasstacks’ military exercises of 1986-87 to declare “that Pakistan had the bomb and would use it against India if its security was endangered.”
“The West made him a villain, and the people, especially the media, and the government, went out of the way to portray him as hero, and at a time when the nation was in dire need of heroes,” comments the report.
Khan headed the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) tasked with fast-tracking the nuclear enrichment programme. “He went into contracts, went rogue in cahoots with elements in the army,” said a political observer speaking on condition of anonymity.
In January 2004 the ‘hero’ took a fall. “The Iranians and Libyans were furious with him for trying to sell them outdated enrichment models,” commented the observer.
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“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” -Henry David Thoreau