The Hindu : Charges slapped on n-scientists

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 04, 2004

International

International

Charges slapped on n-scientists

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, FEB. 3. Pakistan has formally charged four of its nuclear scientists and security officials with transferring nuclear technology to other countries. ``Families received notices from the Government today, saying that the nuclear scientists and security officials have been put under arrest for three months,'' private television channels here quoting a lawyer, representing the scientists, said.

The lawyer had said that the scientists had been charged under security law of 1952, which deals with defence, external and security affairs. The law allows the scientists to have a defence lawyer.

The orders came as the families of the scientists had challenged the detention and the Lahore High Court had ordered the Government to submit its written reply by February 9 on the whereabouts of the scientists and the charges against them.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has denied a claim by a government official that he (Mr. Khan) has admitted to having leaked nuclear secrets to groups working for Iran, Libya and North Korea. The leader of the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, said on Tuesday that Dr. Khan denied the Government claim during a telephonic contact with him.

`Musharraf privy to

n-proliferation'

Sridhar Krishnaswami writes from Washington:

In what should come as an embarrassment to the Bush administration, the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has apparently told investigators that senior military commanders, including General Pervez Musharraf, were informed about assistance to North Korea to design and equip facilities for making weapons-grade uranium, according to The Washington Post and other agency reports.

These reports said Dr. Khan had told investigators that Gen. Musharraf, the former Pakistan Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, and former Pakistan Army chiefs, Mirza Aslam Beg, and Jehangir Karamat, were involved in this act of proliferation along with scientists. According to the investigator, Dr. Khan has said that he helped North Korea with the full knowledge of senior military commanders.

Apparently, during the questioning, Dr. Khan had demanded the quizzing of the former army commanders stressing that ``no de-briefing is complete unless you bring everyone of them here and debrief us together.'' Based on this, investigators questioned Gen. Beg and Gen. Karamat in recent days, but they denied any knowledge of the transactions.

The report draws on a briefing to Pakistani journalists on Sunday in which a senior military officer had said that Dr. Khan had signed a 12-page confession in which he admitted to providing Iran, Libya and North Korea technical assistance for making high-speed centrifuges to enrich uranium.

Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai of Pakistan's Strategic Planning and Development Cell has described Dr. Khan as a mastermind who was involved in an elaborate and wholly unauthorised smuggling network that started in 1989 and brokered by a network of middlemen. According to Gen. Kidwai, Dr. Khan told investigators that the assistance to the three countries was not meant to make money but to deflect attention from Pakistan's own programme and as a gesture of support to other Muslim countries.

``Dr. Khan is basically contesting the merit of the nuclear proliferation charges. Throughout his debriefing Dr. Khan kept challenging the perception that [the] material found from Libyan or Iranian programmes would allow them to enrich uranium,'' an investigator is quoted in The Washington Post as saying.

According to the report Dr. Khan has asserted that Gen. Musharraf should have been aware of the barter agreement with Pyongyang — dating back to 1994 — because the Pakistani President took over responsibility of the Ghauri missile programme when he became Army Chief in October 1998.

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