Pakistan eases house arrest on scientist who sold nuclear secrets

The Pakistan government has eased the house arrest conditions imposed on A. Q. Khann, the scientist who helped develope the country's nuclear arsenal before selling many of those secrets to Iran and North Korea, while it continues to refuse the US access to him. Officials in Islamabad said that a decision has been taken to lessen the restrictions and to allow him to receive his friends and relatives at either his home or elsewhere in the country. One official said, however, he was only permitted to meet people on a pre-approved list. An attempt to call on the 71-year-old former scientist at his house in the upmarket E-7 district of Islamabad was quickly halted by several plainclothes officials working from a glass-fronted sentry box located opposite Khan's bougainvillea-draped home. Unconfirmed reports in the country's capital suggested that officials had told Khan he should even take some trips from his house. Whatever changes been have made to the conditions of Khan's detention, there has been no shift in Pakistan's refusal to allow the US access to the scientist. Just last week, politicians on Capitol Hill renewed their demands that Pakistan allow US officials to question Khan. "We demand direct access to AQ Khan... one of the greatest threats to US security," said Congressman Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House sub-committee on the Middle East and South Asia. While many experts, including a recent report by the London-based think-thank, the Institute for Strategic Studies, have said Khan's proliferation network is no longer operating, Ackerman said that only a handful of the scientist's co-conspirators had been arrested. "Whatever fiction the administration may want to believe, the network may still be doing business under new management," he said. Khan confessed in January 2004 to heading an international ring of smugglers that passed nuclear secrets to Libya, North Korea and Iran. The Pakistani leader, President Pervez Musharraf, pardonned Khan -- considered by many Pakistanis to be a national hero -- but said he would be confined to his house in the capital. Pakistan had launched an investigation the previous year after receiving allegations from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Khan had been operating a black market in weapons technology and practical knowledge. The Pakistani government confirmed in 2005 that Khan -- who procured many nuclear secrets at the multi-national URENCO facility in the Netherlands in the 1970s -- had passed on centrifuge technology to Pyongyang. It has said it shared the findings of its investigation with the US. The IAEA is also demanding access to the scientist.