ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani court on Monday ruled that nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan can travel within the country to visit relatives, but barred him from giving interviews on proliferation.
Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, has been effectively under house arrest in Islamabad since February 2004, when he confessed on television to transferring nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
He's not so much the "father" of Pakistan's atomic bomb, as the "babysnatcher" of Pakistan's atomic bomb. In 1972 Khan got his PhD and moved to the Netherlands to work in a nuclear enrichment facility. Three years later, he moved back to Pakistan, taking with him quantities of highly-classified documents related to nuclear weapon production techniques. Using the blueprints of the Dutch facility in which he previously worked, he constructed a facsimile and began development of the "Islamic Bomb".
Islamabad High Court judge Sardar Mohammad Aslam said in an order obtained by AFP that "no restriction shall be placed on his visit in Pakistan to meet any of his close relations subject to security clearance."
The scientist's wife earlier this month lodged a court challenge against the restrictions on her husband, who had cancer surgery in 2006.
Is Khan's prostate cancer related to his work with highly-enriched uranium? Inshallah. As Allah wills it.
"Dr A.Q. Khan will be allowed to meet his close relatives and friends subject to security clearance and necessary precautions... taken in regard to security and safety which is of paramount importance," the court order said.
Security and safety of whom? What dangers are they trying to address? Are they concerned that Khan will resume (if he has ever stopped) his work in nuclear weapon proliferation? Let's see:
But it said that Khan "will not give interviews to any channel, to a news reporter from a print or electronic media in any manner whatsoever in respect of the issue of proliferation."
Khan was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2004 but has been kept at his Islamabad villa ever since, guarded by troops and intelligence agents.
Musharraf has rejected international demands for access to Khan.
Khan has angered the authorities with a series of recent media interviews, including several in which he alleged that the US-backed Musharraf knew he was taking centrifuges to North Korea in 2000.
Just like the Saudi Royals, the Pakistani government is concerned about one thing in their dealing with jihadis: their own well being. Their concern is that Khan will implicate them in his nuclear skullduggery.
