Pakistani Scientist Admits to Selling Secrets

The father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has admitted providing nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, senior Pakistani military officials said Sunday.

In a background briefing to Pakistani journalists, officials said they had obtained a 12-page confession from Khan, who had led Pakistan’s nuclear program since the 1970s and helped it become the first Muslim nation to possess nuclear weapons. They said that although Khan received money in exchange for the secrets, his main motivation in spreading the technology was to help other Islamic nations become nuclear powers.

Iran and Libya are Muslim nations, but North Korea is not. Officials said Khan, by spreading nuclear technology to other Muslim states, hoped to relieve Western pressure on Pakistan to scrap its nuclear program.

On Saturday, the Pakistani government fired Khan from his job as a top-level advisor. It was unclear Sunday whether Khan would be put on trial. Officials said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would address the nation in the next few days to spell out the details of the findings and announce what action, if any, would be taken against Khan. His home was under military guard over the weekend, and family friends said he was under house arrest.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency began investigating Khan and other nuclear scientists in December after inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency found evidence of Pakistani involvement in Iran’s nuclear program.

Although Pakistan’s nuclear program has long been under military control, the officials who briefed journalists said the military had been unaware of Khan’s proliferation activities.

The officials said other scientists, including Mohammed Farooq, helped Khan spread nuclear secrets and that the technology was transmitted between 1991 and 1997.

“We have also traced the entire route of this proliferation and Dr. Khan’s connections with the nuclear black marketeers,” one official said.

Officials said Khan provided other nations not only with nuclear technology but with equipment. The officials said a Sri Lankan known by the name Farooq was the main contact between Khan and black marketeers.

Pakistan followed neighboring India with its first nuclear weapons tests in 1998. Both countries are also building and testing a series of short- and medium-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.