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Pakistan to Prosecute Additional Scientists Involved in Nuclear Network, Ambassador Says By Mike Nartker WASHINGTON — Contrary to the approach taken with a top nuclear scientist who confessed to transferring nuclear technology abroad, Pakistan plans to prosecute any others associated with its nuclear weapons program found to have been involved in illicit nuclear-related exports, Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Ashraf Jehangir Qazi said yesterday (see GSN, June 7). “No one is above the law,” Qazi said during a nonproliferation conference hosted here by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. After months of investigation last year, top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely regarded as the “father” of the country’s nuclear arsenal, confessed to having transferred nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan’s confession revealed the existence of an international nuclear smuggling network — stretching through a number of countries such as Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates — which provided uranium enrichment technology to the three countries, and perhaps others. Nuclear weapons design information was also transferred at least to Libya. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said during yesterday’s conference that he had been surprised by the “sheer audacity” of the nuclear network, in terms of the types of technologies it provided to clients. Soon after Khan made his reported confession early this year, he received a conditional pardon from Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in exchange for fully cooperating with Pakistan’s internal investigation into the affair. While calling Khan’s activities an “embarrassment” to Pakistan, Qazi yesterday said the value of information the scientist could provide to the investigation warranted the pardon. There were also “political” concerns that guided the decision to pardon Khan, Qazi said, noting his standing within Pakistan for his nuclear weapons efforts. Pakistani authorities have also detained a number of other scientists and officials involved in its nuclear weapons program as part of its investigation into the illicit transfers. Noting that the number of detainees was “few in number” Qazi said that if there was evidence that any were involved in the illicit transfers, they would be prosecuted, and if found guilty, punished. The Pakistani government has denied sanctioning Khan’s activities — a stance Qazi reiterated yesterday. Pakistan is sharing information gleaned through its continual interrogations of Khan with the International Atomic Energy Agency to aid the agency’s own investigation into the nuclear network, Qazi said. He also said, though, that Pakistan would not make public the information it has learned from Khan. In February, Malaysian authorities publicly released a report detailing the information learned from an investigation into an aspect of the nuclear network based there. Questions remain, according to experts, as to why Khan and perhaps other Pakistani nuclear personnel engaged in the illicit transfers. One possible reason might be the covert nature of Pakistan’s own efforts to develop nuclear weapons, beginning in the mid-1970s, Hussain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment said during yesterday’s conference. In what he described as the “drug-user’s dilemma,” Haqqani said that Khan might have had to transfer nuclear technology abroad to help fund Pakistan’s own nuclear weapons efforts. According to reports, Khan confessed to transferring nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea from 1989 to 1997, one year before Pakistan announced that it had tested its own nuclear weapons. U.S. officials have reportedly said, though, that they believe that Khan’s transfers to Libya occurred through 2003, five years after Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program became public.
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