Pakistan Accuses 7 of Helping Khan Share Nuclear Secrets

The government Wednesday formally accused four civilians and three retired military officers of helping pass components and plans for making nuclear weapons to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

The scientists and former officers at Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons lab were part of a black-market operation led by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Khan Research Laboratories, the government alleged in a written reply to a high court justice.

The seven men, who are in custody, transferred secret codes, nuclear materials, machinery and other equipment, as well as sketches, plans, models and other information to countries and individuals, the government claimed.

The allegations were made in reply to complaints filed by relatives of the accused, who have demanded for weeks that the government explain where and why the men were being held without charge.

Under Pakistani law, detainees normally must appear before a magistrate within 48 hours of being taken into custody, their families’ lawyers have argued in court.

Khan, who confessed last week in a nationally televised address to selling nuclear secrets to other countries, was quickly pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf. He remains under house arrest. Relatives of the seven alleged accomplices regularly hold protests and insist the men have been made scapegoats.

The seven include department heads at the weapons lab who were responsible for foreign procurement, metallurgical engineering and missile manufacturing.

Two retired army brigadiers in charge of security there are also among the detainees.

Although Musharraf, who commands the armed forces, has said that Khan and his associates acted alone and were motivated by money, suspicions persist that they could not have moved equipment and nuclear materials to other countries without the approval of high-ranking Pakistani military officers.

Government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said that Khan confessed last week to selling old and outdated centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade material, along with depleted uranium hexafluoride gas to North Korea.

The government told the high court justice Wednesday that the activities of Khan’s accomplices had seriously threatened Pakistan’s nuclear program. It did not provide details of the alleged violations.

“The detention of the detainees is necessary with a view to prevent them from continuing with and carrying on such activities and acting in a manner prejudicial to the defense or the external affairs of the country,” the written reply said.

The document said the men were being held under the Security of Pakistan Act, on an order dated Jan. 31, and it denied the families’ claim that the detentions were made at the behest of the U.S. government.

It said it was not possible, and not in the public interest, to provide more details.

Pakistani authorities have refused to produce the detainees in court, citing security reasons.