Posted on 12/12/2003 8:31:52 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife
Pakistani authorities yesterday sent home one of the two nuclear scientists who had reportedly been detained since early this month, saying they had finished “debriefing” him. “The debriefing session of one of the scientists has concluded and he has resumed his normal duties,” foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan said.
Local newspapers had linked the pair’s apparent detention to allegations that Pakistani scientists helped Iran develop its nuclear programs.
Yasin Chohan, a laboratory director at the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) uranium enrichment facility, returned home yesterday morning, an associate of Chohan’s family said.
Chohan and KRL director Farooq Muhammad were taken from their homes in early December and held for questioning, according to opposition politicians and local news reports. Some reports quoted witnesses saying Caucasian men wearing bulletproof jackets took them from their homes, triggering accusations that United States intelligence agencies were involved.
Pakistani officials denied the pair were in custody, saying they were merely undergoing “routine personnel dependability and debriefing programs”. Earlier a senior government official said the two scientists were “neither arrested nor detained.”
“They are undergoing debriefing sessions conducted by officials from within the sensitive organisations,” said the official, who could not be named. The term “sensitive organisations” refers to intelligence agencies.
“This exercise does not stem from any specific charges against these individuals,” he said. The foreign ministry’s Khan also denied the men had been interrogated or were in custody, or that any foreigners were involved.
“There is no ‘interrogation’ going on. The word has implications of ‘wrongdoing’. This is prejudgement,” Khan said in a written response to e-mailed questions.
“People in debriefing sessions are not held in ‘custody’.”
But he declined to answer whether the men had freedom of movement. Muhammad’s son said his father was fine and was in regular contact with the family. “He is in touch with us and we have spoken to him on a number of times,” he said.
Opposition parties are furious at the scientists’ apparent detention and have accused President Pervez Musharraf of trying to appease the United States. Islamist senator Khurshid Ahmed claimed a third nuclear scientist had been detained, naming KRL principal engineer Saeed Ahmed.
The senator dismissed government assertions that the two scientists were undergoing debriefing sessions as “eyewash.”
The United States has said it will step up its effort to prevent nuclear technology reaching Iran, alleged by Washington to be using an atomic energy program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons.
Pakistan, which declared its nuclear capability in May 1998 with a series of underground nuclear tests, has been accused of sharing nuclear technology with both Iran and North Korea. It adamantly denies the allegations.
Earlier this year, the Americans imposed sanctions on the Khan Research Laboratories, saying the establishment was providing material support to a country or people trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.
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