Calling Pervez Musharraf an “American stooge”, disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan has accused the former President of transferring “very sensitive information” on Pakistan’s atomic programme to the US.
He also confirmed a recent media report which cited him as saying that China provided Pakistan enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs and the blueprint for a simple nuclear weapon in 1982.
“The nation must know that national secrets were handed over to Washington by the former President (Pervez Musharraf) who was an American stooge,” Khan told ‘The News’.
Khan said he was ready to record the facts in this regard in a court. He also backed a media columnist’s observation that Musharraf was “hell bent” on handing him over to the US.
Former Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had reportedly confided to the scientist that he was under “severe pressure” to sign an exit order to hand him over to the US.
However, Jamali refused to do so after taking his cabinet into confidence, Khan said and claimed that Musharraf had kept a C-130 military transport aircraft ready to take him to the US.
Khan said the Washington Times report on China providing uranium to Pakistan was based on a letter he had handed over to his daughter Dina Khan in 2004 as a precautionary measure. The letter was recovered from her baggage and “ultimately landed on Musharraf’s table”, Khan said.
Musharraf referred to the letter in his book. On Musharraf’s orders, “humiliating search operations” were carried out in Khan’s home and all documents, personal diaries and family photos were confiscated, the atomic scientist claimed.
Khan claimed “one-sided action” was taken against him during Musharraf’s regime and a “deliberate and well calculated policy was implemented to brand him a culprit“.
He also claimed a “comprehensive strategy against him and Pakistan’s atomic programme had been drawn at a secret meeting between Musharraf and former CIA director George Tenet” in New York on September 24, 2003.
Khan demanded an inquiry and a trial of “Musharraf and his coterie”. “It is an open secret that Musharraf had deep-rooted contacts with Israel and God knows how many secrets he had transferred to them,” he claimed.
Khan was placed under house arrest after he confessed to running a clandestine proliferation ring in early 2004.
Pakistani courts eased restrictions on his movements last year though Khan remains under the surveillance of security agencies.
