Friday, April 04, 2008

Pakistan nuclear scientist hopes to be freed: paper

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan termed his detention as "irrational" in a newspaper interview published on Wednesday, and said he hoped the new government would free him soon. Khan was put under house arrest by President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad after an investigation was launched in late 2003 and he confessed on television in early 2004 to passing nuclear secrets and materials to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Lionised by many Pakistanis as the father of the country's atomic bomb, Khan escaped more severe punishment.

Khan's admirers want the new coalition government, which took power after the defeat of pro-Musharraf parties in a February 18 election, to free their hero.

In an interview with the Urdu-language Nawa-i-Waqt, also carried by sister publication The Nation, Khan rejected the impression he was kept under detention for his own security.


"It is nothing but a lame excuse," Khan was quoted as saying in an interview carried ...

Full story @ http://www.reuters.com/article/gc04/idUSISL20060720080402

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