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Pakistan: Former Nuclear Scientist Still Under Suspicion After four months of investigation, U.S. and Pakistani authorities remain uncertain whether Pakistani nuclear scientist Sultan Bashiru-din Mehmood aided suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden’s efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 31). Regardless of what discussions Mehmood had with bin Laden, the scientist did not have the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon alone, said Pakistani authorities, who decided in January not to prosecute him (see GSN, Jan. 30). U.S. officials, however, are still suspicious of Mehmood, according to the Post. He is still on the U.S. list of known terrorists, his assets are still frozen and he remains under house arrest with a 24-hour guard in Pakistan. U.S. officials also claim Mehmood failed six lie detector tests administered during questioning. Although there is no evidence bin Laden has obtained nuclear weapons, diplomats and intelligence officials believe he made every effort to do so (see related GSN story, today). “They were knocking on every door. They were trying every avenue,” said an Arab diplomat who monitored al-Qaeda activities from Pakistan. “This was for them the future. Why not? It’s a weapon of mass destruction, so why not try to get hold of it?” Mehmood could have been one possible source, according to the Post. His work did not involve actual nuclear weapons construction, but he did help to build a plant near Islamabad that produced enriched uranium for use in nuclear bombs, the Post reported. Before Mehmood retired from Pakistan’s nuclear program, he headed the Khosab reactor in the Punjab region that produced weapon-grade plutonium. Bin Laden might have attempted to use Mehmood to find other scientists who would help him use nuclear materials to build a nuclear or radiological weapon, according to investigators. Mehmood advocated the development of weapon-grade material to help arm other Islamic countries with nuclear weapons, Pakistani officials said. “Mehmood was one of the nuclear hawks,” said Rifaat Hussain, head of the Defense and Strategic Studies Department at Quad-I-Azam University in Islamabad. “People say he was a very capable scientist and very capable engineer but he had this totally crazy mind-set.” Asim Mehmood, Mehmood’s son, said his father had met twice with bin Laden and that bin Laden had asked him for information on how to construct a nuclear weapon. Mehmood said that his father had only asked bin Laden for help in establishing a charity in Afghanistan and had refused to divulge nuclear secrets. “My father never went along,” Asim Mehmood said. Bin Laden “asked him about how to make a bomb and things like that. But my father wouldn’t help him. He told him, ‘It’s not so easy. You can’t just build a bomb. You can’t just do it with a few thousand (Pakistani) rupees. You need a big institution. You should forget it’” (Peter Baker, Washington Post, March 3).
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