http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001851037_khan05.html


Pakistan's nuclear hero apologizes for assistance to other countries

By The Associated Press and The Washington Post


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In a startling confession made on national television, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program said yesterday that he — not the government — leaked secrets to countries abroad.

Abdul Qadeer Khan admitted providing nuclear weapons expertise and equipment to Iran, Libya and North Korea, saying he had done so without authorization from the Pakistani government.

"My dear brothers and sisters, I have chosen to appear before you to offer my deepest regrets and unqualified apologies to a traumatized nation," Khan said in a taped four-minute address that aired on state-run Pakistan Television after a meeting between Khan and Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Khan agreed to speak on television in return for assurances that he would not be prosecuted for transactions that Pakistani investigators say provided him millions of dollars over a period of almost two decades, according to a Cabinet minister and an individual outside of government who was involved in brokering the agreement.

The deal appeared to eliminate the prospect of a public confrontation between the government and Khan that could prove uncomfortable for Musharraf if it led to disclosures that Pakistan's military played a role in Khan's activities.

It also appears to mean that Khan will essentially go unpunished for presiding over what Pakistani officials now acknowledge, after years of denials, was a far-reaching scheme to peddle hardware, blueprints and design assistance by means of a thriving nuclear black market stretching from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia.

Musharraf has been under heavy public pressure to go easy on Khan, 67, a European-trained metallurgist who is considered a national hero for his pivotal role in developing nuclear weapons that helped redress a strategic imbalance with archrival India. India tested its first nuclear device in 1974; Pakistan's first test was in 1998.

Leaders of an alliance of hard-line Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis Amal, have promised to hold a nationwide protest tomorrow against the investigation of Khan and other scientists and officials associated with the Khan Research Laboratories, which Khan founded nearly three decades ago in Kahuta, about 20 miles from Islamabad, to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. Partly in response to U.S. pressure, Musharraf forced Khan to retire from the lab in 2001.

Pakistan launched its investigation last year after the International Atomic Energy Agency provided it with evidence that Pakistani scientists had provided hardware and expertise to Iran for building high-speed centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. The United States separately expressed concern that Pakistan had provided similar assistance to North Korea. Pakistani authorities subsequently widened their investigation after Libya admitted in December that it had a nuclear weapons program.

Over the past two months, Pakistani investigators uncovered evidence that Khan had conducted transactions with all three countries and made millions of dollars in the process. They found he had spread his wealth among foreign bank accounts, palatial homes in Pakistan and properties abroad, including a hotel named for his wife, Hendrina, in the West African state of Mali.

According to investigators, Khan said he provided the assistance to Iran, North Korea and Libya to deflect international attention from Pakistan's nuclear program.

He also has maintained, according to a friend of Khan's and a senior investigator, that three army chiefs of staff, including Musharraf, were aware of the assistance he provided to North Korea in exchange for help with Pakistan's ballistic missile program. Khan's statement yesterday contradicted that claim, however, and government officials, including Musharraf, have denied that military commanders knew of Khan's selling nuclear secrets abroad.

Many Pakistanis have questioned how Khan could have conducted such an ambitious series of illicit sales without some level of official support. Though he enjoyed great autonomy as lab director, security at the facility was the responsibility of the military and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

As a kind of insurance policy, Khan several weeks ago provided his daughter, Dina, who lives in England, with evidence that the military knew of his nuclear dealings abroad, instructing her to make the evidence public if the government were to prosecute or take other punitive action against him, according to a friend of Khan's who has spoken with him twice during the investigation.

But the government also exerted leverage on Khan. Lt. Gen. Ehsan ul-Haq, the head of the ISI, and Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, the head of the Strategic Planning and Development Cell, last week confronted Khan with "reams of evidence" that he had not only made large sums from his foreign clients but also from improper deals with suppliers of technology for Pakistan's program, a senior official said.

They threatened to make the evidence public if he did not sign a confession, which he did Friday after discussing his options with S.M. Zafar, an attorney and former law minister, the official said.

The 12-page confession, which was drafted by Makhdoom Ali Khan, Pakistan's attorney general, will be presented to the IAEA at the conclusion of Pakistan's investigation as part of an effort to convince the world that Pakistan takes its responsibilities as a nuclear power seriously, the official said.


Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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