Author: Ahmed Rashid in Lahore
and Robin Gedye
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: February 4, 2004
URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/04/wpak04.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/02/04/ixnewstop.html
Pakistan is likely to pardon without
trial the father of the country's atomic bomb even though he has confessed
to selling nuclear technology to rogue states, a senior government official
told the Telegraph yesterday.
President Pervaiz Musharraf, now
facing mounting anger over the detention of Abdul Qadeer Khan, is expected
to indicate the government's plans in a television address in the next
few days.
The scientist, a national icon,
is under house arrest. He is said to have confessed to selling nuclear
weapons technology to some of the world's most radical anti-western states,
including Libya, Iran and North Korea, over at least 11 years.
There were growing indications last
night that the mix of popular feeling and the risk that a trial would expose
the army's involvement in the scandal will effectively end any chance of
a trial.
Since Mr Khan had confessed to selling
technology "there was no further need to humiliate the father of Pakistan's
nuclear bomb, who has kept the nation safe from Indian attack", the official
said.
The official, intimately involved
in Mr Khan's investigation, said a trial would be too sensitive when "political
opposition to the president is building up".
According to yesterday's Washington
Post, the Pakistanis have other reasons for burying the issue.
It quoted a friend of Mr Khan and
a senior Pakistani investigator as saying the scientist helped North Korea
design and equip facilities for making weapons-grade uranium with the full
knowledge of senior military commanders, including Gen Musharraf, who is
also army chief of staff.
Mr Khan apparently urged investigators
to question army commanders and Gen Musharraf, saying "no debriefing is
complete unless you bring every one of them here and debrief us together".
Even if the president does not explicitly
pardon Mr Khan, who led Pakistan's development of the Islamic world's first
nuclear bomb in 1998, he is expected to say enough to calm mounting anger
over his detention.
Both Washington and London, keenly
aware of President Musharraf's dilemma, are understood not to have pressed
him to stage a public trial.
While Pakistan can expect international
indignation if a pardon were granted, the Americans and British say they
are content that the nuclear network has been smashed.
"There is relief that this avenue
for proliferating nuclear weapons has been cut off," said a senior diplomat
in London.
"These transgressions occurred several
years ago and even though one must assume they did so with the knowledge
of Pakistan's intelligence services, it is not for us to advise a key ally
on how to deal with the matter."
Other western diplomats appeared
less conciliatory. One said leading western countries and institutions,
including the US, Britain and the International Atomic Energy Agency, would
demand that their experts debrief Mr Khan "in jail and not after a pardon
in his mansion".
Another promised international indignation
in the event of pardon. "He is the world's biggest criminal, involved for
27 years in selling nuclear technology. If you let him off with a slap
on the wrist, then what kind of message are you sending to others?" he
said.
Mr Khan has let it be known that
he is prepared to blow the whistle on the army's involvement. A cabinet
minister revealed that Mr Khan's daughter, a British citizen, had travelled
to London with papers that could incriminate generals and other Pakistani
leaders, including the former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz
Sharif.
Mr Khan is also reported to have
briefed several trusted local journalists with similar information before
he was placed under house arrest two weeks ago, asking them to publish
it if he went on trial.
