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| Friday, 6 February 2004 |
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Pakistan detains several nuclear scientists, officials ISLAMABAD, Thursday (AFP) Pakistan has formally arrested five scientists and officials from its top nuclear facility amid a probe into the alleged transfer of technology to other countries, a government spokesman said Thursday. The five, arrested under Pakistan's security law, had been detained for about three months for interrogation and were formally arrested on Wednesday, Interior Ministry spokesman Rauf Chaudhry told AFP. "They include nuclear scientists and administrators belonging to the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL)," he said. The arrests followed a dramatic televised admission by former KRL chief Abdul Qadeer Khan late Wednesday that he had passed on Pakistan's nuclear know-how. The detainees included senior KRL scientists Mohammad Farooq and Nazir Ahmed, and administrators retired brigadier Tajwar Khan and former brigadier Malik Sajawal, Chaudhry said. Khan's principal staff officer, retired Major Islam ul Haq, was also arrested, he said. He did not say what charges the five faced. Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear programme who is revered as a national hero, read out his confession on state-run television soon after meeting President Pervez Musharraf. His confession and plea for forgiveness followed the questioning of more than a dozen nuclear scientists, engineers and administrators during a probe into nuclear leaks from Pakistan. The Pakistan cabinet is to decide at a special meeting whether to agree to his plea for pardon, officials said. Meanwhile the U.N. nuclear watchdog and Western diplomats said the nuclear black market used by Pakistan's top atomic scientist to sell Iran, Libya and North Korea nuclear technology may be far bigger than initially feared, The father of Pakistan's atom bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, publicly confessed to leaking nuclear secrets on Wednesday, and several Western diplomats told Reuters they suspected the Pakistan-led black market uncovered by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) might only be the tip of the iceberg. "Our big priority is to figure out if there are any other countries that might have benefited from this nuclear network," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said. Media attention has focused on Khan's atomic aid to Tripoli, Tehran and Pyongyang. But Western diplomats said it could not be ruled out that other countries had been customers of Khan's network of nuclear "middlemen". "This is what we are all worried about," said one Western diplomat. He declined to say what other countries might have been customers of Khan. In contrast to media reports that the nuclear black market Khan used was small, diplomats said the available evidence indicated it is massive. Its aim is to skirt international sanctions and sell potentially weapons-related technology to nations under embargo. "Clearly what came out of Libya is that this is much bigger and more extensive than was previously thought," said a second Western diplomat. The second diplomat said the size of this black market, which spans the Eurasian land mass, should not be underestimated. Diplomats also doubted Khan's statement that he had arranged it all himself and that Pakistan's government and army knew nothing of his actions. They said it was inconceivable Khan acted alone given the interest Pakistan's military takes in the country's nuclear programme. At the same time, some Vienna-based diplomats said the most important issue was not who did what but that the investigation by the IAEA uncovered every tentacle of the global nuclear black market so that it could be destroyed. |
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