A.Q. Khan may move court against ‘detention’

By IANS

Islamabad : Disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, under house arrest on charges of nuclear proliferation, may move court to challenge his ‘detention’ by President Pervez Musharraf, naming him in his petition.


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Two lawyers were giving final touches to an “extraordinary petition”, The News said Wednesday, quoting unnamed sources who said: “It is now only a matter of time. The case is almost ready and it can be submitted in the court any time.”

But efforts are on to prevent Khan from adding to Musharraf’s current woes before the apex court.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s advisor on science, Attaur Rehman, has “secretly” met Khan at his residence to stop him from moving the court, “after secret agencies brought this explosive development into the notice of the government”, the newspaper said.

Khan says the military strongman has backed out on “promises” he had allegedly made while seeking his “favour” to confess to his “crimes” in a televised address, to “save” Pakistan from dangers to its existence.

His movements curbed since January 2004, Khan is said to have hired the services of two top lawyers of Islamabad to challenge Musharraf’s decision to detain him on charges of nuclear proliferation without proving them in any court of law.

Musharraf would be directly accused in the petition.

Khan is accused of illegally passing nuclear designs and configurations to Iran, North Korea, Libya and terror network Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden. The US is still investigating the matter and has repeatedly sought access to Khan.

The current judicial activism is understood to have encouraged Khan to move the court.

Khan’s case in the Supreme Court would be the fourth big case in the last six months. The other three cases, which created political ripples in the recent months, included the reinstatement of the chief justice of Pakistan, allowing the Sharif brothers to return to the country, and Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s petition challenging the two offices of General Musharraf.

Rehman confirmed Tuesday that he had met Khan recently at his residence. But he denied that his meeting with the nuclear scientist was part of the government attempt to stop him from moving the court.

He termed it “a personal meeting with an old friend”.

Khan is said to have asked his lawyers in Islamabad to prepare the petition as he thought that he was detained without any trial and that the government had failed to establish his crimes in a court of law.

Rehman, who has benefited from his friendship with Khan in the past, was assigned the job of persuading Khan not to approach the court at this very critical moment, particularly when General Musharraf is under mounting judicial and political pressure.

“But despite the offer of certain concessions, A.Q. Khan is understood to have so far not given any positive reply,” the newspaper said.

Zafar Khokhar, a former attorney general of Pakistan, denied that he was instructed to prepare Khan’s petition. However, Khokhar blasted the government for keeping Khan in illegal detention.

Khokhar claimed that Khan was told by the government that he needed “to offer sacrifice… to save the country a second time, as he had done earlier”, by helping Pakistan develop nuclear technology.

Despite Khokhar’s denial, according to the newspaper, reliable sources insisted that he was actually working on the petition and that it would be filed soon in the court.

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