Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist who helped Pakistan develop a nuclear weapon and allegedly leaked atomic secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya, was freed from years of de facto house arrest Friday after a high court ruling.
A smiling Khan emerged from his house and addressed reporters face-to-face for the first time since 2004 but indicated he would not be talking about Pakistan's secretive atomic program and about who else was involved in leaking its secrets around the world.
"We don't want to talk about the past things," he said as the guards who have enforced his long isolation stood aside for a throng of TV crews and journalists.
Khan, the architect of Pakistan's nuclear program, took sole responsibility in 2004 for leaking the nuclear secrets but was immediately pardoned by former President Pervez Musharraf and placed under de facto house arrest. The government insists neither it nor the Pakistani military was aware of his activities.
Source: AP News
As a reminder of the name Khan, in the Scooter Libby case, there was the issue of the "topic summaries"--the nine things Libby says he was "consumed" by, which caused him to forget he had outed Valerie Plame that he needed to defend his case. One of the topics was Nuclear proliferation by Pakistan scientist A. Q. Khan and efforts by the US to stop his activities which was Plame's involvement in non-proliferation activities. Click here to read more.
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