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Briton key suspect in nuclear ring Man accused of smuggling parts tells Guardian: 'I was framed' Owen Bowcott, Ian Traynor in Zagreb, John Aglionby in Jakarta and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Thursday February 12, 2004 The Guardian (UK) A Middle East-based British businessman has emerged as a key suspect in a secret network supplying Libya, Iran and North Korea with equipment to build nuclear bombs. Speaking for the first time yesterday, Paul Griffin denied that his company played any part in shipping prohibited material from the Far East. He told the Guardian: "We have been framed." His comments came as...

WASHINGTON: Under tremendous pressure from the United States, Islamabad’s ruling dispensation appears to be zeroing in on Pakistan’s national hero, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, as the source of nuclear proliferation. Several people, perhaps up to 25, included some of Khan’s closest aides, have been detained in recent days. Some of them have been dragged out of their homes kicking and screaming, according to family members who have spoken to the Pakistani media. Khan himself has been treated more circumspectly, but he has also been questioned exhaustively and further steps against him seem imminent. The military government already seems to be...

WASHINGTON: The famous African explorer Dr David Livingstone might have been impressed, even if the agenda was suspect. Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear proliferator-hero Abdul Qadeer Khan traversed the breadth of Africa in his hey day as a nuclear salesman , going to as romantic a getaway as Casablanca in Morocco and as remote an outpost as Timbuktu in Mali.   US officials might dearly like to get hold of Khan’s travel agent, or simply his itinerary, since he seems to have pretty much charted his own course during his profligate proliferating days. According to accounts now surfacing in the Pakistani media,...

The London accountant who accompanied Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to Timbuktu on three occasions in 1998, 1999 and 2000 says the 'father' of the Pakistani bomb witnessed the digging of a well, toured an ancient Islamic library and enjoyed the views of the desert. A remote outpost in the middle of the West African desert, Timbuktu usually attracts explorers associated in the popular mind with the adventures of the comic character Tin Tin. And Pakistani dissidents told rediff.com the reason for Khan's visit to Timbuktu, part of landlocked West African state of Mali, was to prospect for uranium. They say...

A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout The U.S. took too long to act, some experts say, letting a Pakistani scientist sell illicit technology well after it knew of his operation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year. Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes...

A new book written by a former FBI consultant claims that al-Qaida not only has obtained nuclear devices, but likely has them in the U.S. and will detonate them in the near future. These chilling allegations appear in "Osama's Revenge: The Next 9/11: What the Media and the Government Haven't Told You," by Paul L. Williams (Prometheus Books). Williams claims that al-Qaida has been planning a spectacular nuclear attack using six or seven suitcase nuclear bombs that would be detonated simulantaneously against U.S. cities. "They want the most bang for the buck, and that is nuclear," Williams told NewsMax. "I...

The Pakistani scientist at the centre of a black market in nuclear weapons is said to have displayed sensitive equipment and brochures for atom bomb technology at a Pakistani arms fair. Pakistan's government has denied any knowledge of the black market activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, and his Khan Research Laboratories. However, Jane's Defence Weekly has reported the laboratories had run a stall at the international arms trade fair in Karachi in November 2000, and displayed components used in the production of weapons-grade uranium. Jane's obtained the brochures for weapons-related technology, and inquired whether all of the listed items were...

ISLAMABAD—A top US intelligence official interrogated Dr A. Q. Khan during his recent visit to Islamabad early this month to verify the authenticity of the information supplied by Pakistan to the US on nuclear proliferation, reliable sources told The Nation Tuesday. The US embassy neither denied nor confirmed the information, but Pakistani officials dismissed it summarily. George Tenet, the CIA chief, had a debriefing session with Dr Khan on February 12 in Islamabad, sources said. The debriefing session was arranged following Bush administration’s assertion to have a direct contact with Dr Khan. Within 48 hours after the debriefing session Dr...

A London accountant has described how Pakistan's disgraced nuclear hero Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan visited the West African state of Mali on three occasions between 1998 and 2000. Abdul Ma'bood Siddiqui accompanied A.Q. Khan on three mystery trips  between 1998 and 2000. Their final destination was Timbuktu, a remote outpost in the desert that has always been a magnet for explorers and adventurers from around the world. The mystery behind the visits has deepened following recent revelations that Khan is also the owner of a small hotel in the town that he has named after Hendrina, his Dutch-born wife and...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Foreign Ministry acknowledged on Sunday that the Islamic Republic had bought nuclear components from dealers but said it did not know where the parts came from. Disclosures by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, have in recent weeks opened the lid on a global black market network for sensitive nuclear technology that could be used to make atomic bombs. Khan has admitted to leaking nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. "We have bought some things from some dealers but we don't know what the source was or from what country they...

VIENNA — Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan presided over a nuclear smuggling operation so brazen that the government weapons laboratory he ran distributed a glossy sales brochure offering sophisticated technology and shipped some of its most sensitive equipment directly from Pakistan to countries such as Libya and North Korea. The brochure, with photos of Khan and an array of weapons on the cover, listed a complete range of equipment for separating nuclear fuel from uranium. Also for sale were Khan's "consultancy and advisory services," and conventional weapons such as missiles, according to a copy of the brochure provided to the...

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 20 -- The Sri Lankan businessman who was an associate of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has told Malaysian police how Khan shipped components to Libya and Iran for their nuclear weapons programs and received two briefcases with a $3 million payment from Iran, a Malaysian police report disclosed Friday. In an insider's account of Khan's operation, Buhary Syed Abu Tahir said that Khan asked him to send two shipping containers of used centrifuges -- sophisticated equipment for enriching uranium -- to Iran from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, aboard a merchant vessel owned by an...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold centrifuge parts to Iran for its nuclear program in the mid-1990s for $3 million in cash, police said Friday, citing the deal's middleman. Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, the alleged chief financier of an international nuclear trafficking network run by Khan, told Malaysian police that the scientist asked him to send two containers of used centrifuge parts from Pakistan to Iran in 1994 or 1995. Tahir also said Libya received enriched uranium from Pakistan in 2001, according to police. Tahir is in Malaysia and has been questioned by local authorities...

<p>KARACHI, Pakistan -- The scientist behind a worldwide black market in nuclear technology is involved in high-stakes brinksmanship over his future, refusing to hand over reportedly incriminating documents demanded by Pakistani authorities.</p> <p>The documents and a tape-recorded statement, which are said to demonstrate that senior Pakistani army officials -- including President Pervez Musharraf -- were aware of Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear proliferation activities, are believed to have been smuggled out of the country for safekeeping by the scientist's daughter Dina.</p>

Libyan Arms Papers Are Linked to China Nuclear Secrets Passed Through Pakistan By Joby Warrick and Peter SlevinWashington Post Staff WritersSunday, February 15, 2004; Page A01 Investigators have identified China as the origin of nuclear weapons designs found in Libya last year, exposing yet another link in a chain of proliferation that passed nuclear secrets through Pakistan to other countries in Asia and the Middle East, according to government officials and arms experts. The bomb designs and other papers turned over by Libya have yielded dramatic evidence of China's long-suspected role in transferring nuclear know-how to Pakistan in the early...

Pakistani traded cash for silence February 17, 2004 BY PAUL HAVEN ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Abdul Qadeer Khan spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy loyalty -- writing checks for anything from seminars to friends' weddings -- in a scheme that allowed him to elude suspicion as head of the world's most successful nuclear black market, senior scientists and government officials said Monday. Pakistan acknowledged this month that Khan sold weapons secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. But signs that the grandfatherly engineer was up to something illegal had been around for years. ''If you wrote to him that...

ISLAMABAD, Feb 15: The founder of country's nuclear programme, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, has suffered a heart attack, sources in the KRL hospital told Dawn on Sunday. In view of his poor cardiac condition, a heart specialist along with a cardiac machine was secretly sent to his residence from the KRL hospital last Sunday, the sources said. They said Dr Khan had been suffering from pain in his left hand since being questioned by an intelligence agency for his alleged involvement in transferring nuclear technology. The sources said Dr Khan was under treatment at his residence and his condition was...

WASHINGTON – As the Pakistani nuclear proliferation story widens, U.S. intelligence officials say top atomic scientists from that country met with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. Two former senior Pakistani nuclear scientists who were based in the Afghan town of Kandahar met Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden several times before the fall of the Taliban. They were later detained and questioned on their return to Pakistan. Last week, after it became clear that Pakistan was the center of what has become known internationally as the "nuclear bazaar," President Pervez Musharraf agreed to pardon nuclear scientist Abdul...

Sources: Equipment stolen from Pakistan's nuclear weapons lab went to Iran, North Korea, Libya and Malaysia ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The father of Pakistan's nuclear program smuggled out high-tech centrifuges used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and other equipment to Iran, Libya, North Korea and Malaysia through an international black market network, officials said Tuesday. "In some cases, chartered planes were used to smuggle out centrifuge machines and other sophisticated equipment to these countries," a senior government official told The Associated Press. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said two "individuals" from Sri Lanka and Germany...