   Disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan waves to media at his home in Islamabad, Pakistan on Friday, Feb. 6, 2009. Khan says a court has granted him more freedom after years of de facto house arrest.(AP Photo/B.K.Bangash) |
The decision to grant freedom of movement to Abdul Qadeer Khan stirred alarm in Washington, which worries that Iran has continued to pursue nuclear arms and that Pakistan may not be able to safeguard its own arsenal in the face of rising Islamic militancy.
The White House said President Barack Obama wants assurances from Pakistan that Khan isn't involved in the activity that led to his arrest. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said Khan remained a "serious proliferation risk."
Asked Friday what the international community would think of his release, Khan was typically defiant.
"Are they happy with our God? Are they happy with our prophet? Are they happy with our leader? Never," he said. "I don't care about rest of the world. I care about my country. Obama cares about America, not about Pakistan or India or Afghanistan."
Khan said he had no plans to return to the nuclear field.
Khan's wife told The Associated Press that her husband would remain under some restrictions, including a gag order.
While the 72-year-old scientist is a pariah in the West, he is a national hero for his pivotal role in developing the nuclear bomb for Pakistan and was lionized by Islamists for making it the world's only Muslim nuclear power.
He was detained in December 2003, however, and admitted on television in early 2004 that he operated a network that spread nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
Khan was immediately pardoned by former President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and placed under de facto house arrest.
Unanswered questions remain about the technology that Khan allegedly shared and with whom he shared it, and whether Pakistani authorities knew what he was doing or profited from sales.
Khan began agitating for an end to the restrictions on him after Musharraf was ousted last year. In recent months, he has been allowed to occasionally meet friends outside his house and has spoken to reporters over the phone. The Islamabad High Court announced Friday he was a "free citizen," subject to a confidential accord struck with the government.
Hours later, Khan emerged from his house in the Pakistani capital and addressed reporters face-to-face for the first time since 2004.
He indicated he would not be discussing Pakistan's secretive atomic bomb program or about who else might have been involved in leaking its technology around the world — questions that still puzzle investigators trying to establish the extent of his network's activities and whether it is still in business.
"We don't want to talk about the past things," Khan said as the guards who enforced his long isolation stood aside for a throng of TV crews and journalists.
Government prosecutor Amjad Iqbal Qureshi said the decision to loosen restrictions on Khan was the result of a compromise with Pakistani authorities and that "security measures" for Khan would remain. The government has denied that Khan was under arrest, maintaining the restrictions were to protect him and Pakistan's state secrets.
Khan hailed the order as a "good judgment."
"At least I have got my freedom. I can move around," he said.
His wife, Hendrina Khan, said the freedom was limited to the capital and that "more strings have been attached" regarding what he could say.
She said the restrictions went beyond an order issued by the same court last year barring Khan from discussing the subject of nuclear proliferation even with his relatives.
"We know it is not possible to give our version," she told the AP by telephone.
Pakistan insists its weapons are secure. However, Khan's anti-Western rhetoric feeds concern that al-Qaida and other extremist groups could seek to acquire nuclear materials from sympathizers in the country's security establishment, especially if Pakistan frays under sustained militant attack.
In telephone interviews last year, Khan backed away from his confession, complaining he had been made a scapegoat and had done nothing illegal or unauthorized.
David Albright, a proliferation expert at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said Khan's attitude indicated he was still a danger.
"The only constraint I see on Khan's capability to proliferate is his age and his health," Albright said. "He may bring in others to front for him."
The failure of Pakistan and the West to prosecute him "gives a message that the big fish get away and this is not going to deter others from the path of nuclear smuggling," Albright said.
Other analysts said the move looked more like a gesture by the current pro-U.S. government to boost its flagging popularity.
"Of course, it will raise alarm bells overseas that this man is now running around," said Kamran Bokhari of Stratfor, a security think tank based in Austin, Texas.
"But he is not allowed to travel abroad, and he can only travel around country with a security detail, ostensibly for his own protection," Bokhari said.
"In reality, that security detail is there to let the West know that he is still under observation, and that there will be no return to the good old days when he was free to travel around the world (dispensing) nuclear technology," he said.
Britain's Foreign Office urged Pakistan to grant the U.N. atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, direct access to Khan "in order to seek information about his nuclear proliferation activity, in particular the smuggling of secrets to Iran and North Korea."
Pakistan says it has relayed all relevant questions to Khan and provided the IAEA with his answers.
Pakistan has taken "all necessary measures to promote the goals of nonproliferation," Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said. "The so called A.Q. Khan affair is a closed chapter."
Associated Press writers Stephen Graham in Islamabad, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels and Dean Carson in London contributed to this report.