Khan Regrets Destruction of Nuclear Documents

Former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan claimed that nuclear documents destroyed by the Swiss government last year could have helped clear him of charges that he provided nuclear information and equipment to Libya, Iran and North Korea, Kyodo News reported yesterday (see GSN, May 27).

Khan described the documents — obtained from a Swiss resident suspected of participating in a nuclear smuggling ring that Khan is widely assumed to have led — in written correspondence relayed to Kyodo News.

“The documents revealed that all the information which I am accused of proliferating was available with the suppliers.  It proved that the Western suppliers from Switzerland, Germany and South Africa all had complete details on nuclear weapons.  They provided this technology to all who were willing to pay,” Khan wrote.

“Yes, the documents would have gone a long way in proving my innocence,” he said in the written interview.

Khan has largely been confined to his home since 2004, when he accepted personal responsibility for the proliferation cases (see GSN, May 28).  He has since claimed that he took the blame in Pakistan’s “greater national interest” (see GSN, April 8; Kyodo News/BreitBart, May 28).

Khan hinted that not everything was yet publicly known regarding the black-market proliferation operation, Agence France-Presse reported.

“There are some things — they will be out in time, when an appropriate time is there,” he told Dawn News television (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, May 29).

Meanwhile, Pakistan yesterday observed the 10th anniversary of its first nuclear tests on May 28, 1998, AFP reported.

“It was a historic day in the nation's quest for security,” the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.  “Pakistan has taken its responsibilities as a nuclear-weapon state seriously.  We have not relented in our pursuit for creating a peaceful global and regional environment” (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, May 28).

Security personnel in Islamabad intercepted about 300 students approaching Khan’s residence, Kyodo News reported.

Several hundred people also demonstrated against the nuclear tests in the capital of the province where they took place.  The demonstrators said that residents and crops near the test site at Chaghai have been affected by radiation released by the detonations (Kyodo News, May 28).

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