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Prof. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan

           Early life
Dr. Khan was born (Bhopal) into a middle-class Mohajir/Pashtun Muslim family which migrated from India to Pakistan in 1952. He obtained the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1960 from the University of Karachi, majoring in physical metallurgy. He then obtained the degree of Master of Science (Technology) in 1967 from Delft University of Technology, Holland, and a Doctor of Engineering degree in metallurgical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 1972

Work in the Netherlands

In 1972, the year he received his PhD, Khan joined the staff of the Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory (FDO) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. FDO was a subcontractor for URENCO, the uranium enrichment facility at Almelo in the Netherlands, which had been established in 1970 by the United Kingdom, West Germany, and the Netherlands to assure a supply of enriched uranium for the European nuclear reactors. The URENCO facility used Zippe-type centrifuge technology to separate the fissionable isotope uranium-235 out of uranium hexafluoride gas by spinning a mixture of the two isotopes at up to 100,000 revolutions a minute. The technical details of these centrifuge systems are regulated as secret information by export controls because they could be used for the purposes of nuclear proliferation.

In May 1974, India carried out its first nuclear test, code named Smiling Buddha, to the great alarm of the Government of Pakistan. Around this time, Khan had privileged access to the most secret areas of the URENCO facility as well as to documentation on the gas centrifuge technology. A subsequent investigation by the Dutch authorities found that he had passed highly-classified material to a network of Pakistani intelligence agents; however, they found no evidence that he was sent to the Netherlands as a spy nor were they able to determine whether he approached the Government of Pakistan about espionage first or whether they had approached him. In December 1975, Khan suddenly left the Netherlands; he returned to Pakistan in 1976..

The former Dutch Prime Minister, Ruud Lubbers, said in early August 2005 that the Government of the Netherlands knew of Dr. A.Q. Khan "stealing" the secrets of nuclear technology but let him go on at two occasions after the CIA expressed their wish to continue monitoring his movements.

Development of nuclear weapons

Dr. AQ Khan stands in the access tunnel inside the Chagai Hills nuclear test site before Pakistan�s May 28, 1998 underground nuclear test.
Dr. AQ Khan (hatless) poses with Pakistani nuclear scientists shortly after the Chagai Hills nuclear test, summer 1998; the dust in the background was stirred up by the detonation.In 1976, Khan was put in charge of Pakistan's uranium enrichment program with the support of the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The uranium enrichment program was originally launched in 1974 by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as Project-706 and AQ Khan joined it in the spring of 1976. In July of that year, he took over the project from PAEC and established the Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL) at Kahuta, Rawalpindi, subsequently, renamed the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) by the then President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. The laboratories became the focal point for developing a uranium enrichment capability for Pakistan's nuclear weapons development programme. KRL also took on many other weapons development projects, including the development of the nuclear weapons-capable Ghauri ballistic missile. KRL occupied a unique role in Pakistan's Defence Industry, reporting directly to the office of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and having extremely close relations with the Pakistani military. The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, has said that, during her term of office, even she was not allowed to visit the facility (KRL).

Pakistan's establishment of its own uranium enrichment capability was so rapid that international suspicion was raised as to whether there was outside assistance to this program. It was reported that Chinese technicians had been at the facility in the early 1980s, but suspicions soon fell on Khan's activities at URENCO. In 1983, Khan was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison by an Amsterdam court for attempted espionage; the sentence was later overturned at an appeal on a legal technicality. Khan rejected any suggestion that Pakistan had illicitly acquired nuclear expertise: "All the research work [at Kahuta] was the result of our innovation and struggle," he told a group of Pakistani librarians in 1990. "We did not receive any technical know-how from abroad, but we cannot reject the use of books, magazines, and research papers in this connection."[citation needed]

In 1987, a British newspaper reported that Khan had confirmed Pakistan's acquisition of a nuclear weapons development capability, by his saying that the U.S. intelligence report "about our possessing the bomb (nuclear weapon) is correct and so is speculation of some foreign newspapers".[citation needed] Khan's statement was disavowed by the Government of Pakistan. and initially he denied giving it, but he later retracted his denial. In October 1991, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that Khan had repeated his claim at a dinner meeting of businessmen and industrialists in Karachi, which "sent a wave of jubilation" through the audience.[citation needed]

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Western governments became increasingly convinced that covert nuclear and ballistic missile collaboration was taking place between China, Pakistan, and North Korea. According to the Washington Post, "U.S. intelligence operatives secretly rifled Dr. A.Q. [Khan's] luggage ... during an overseas trip in the early 1980s to find the first concrete evidence of Chinese collaboration with Pakistan's [nuclear] bomb effort: a drawing of a crude, but highly reliable, Hiroshima-sized [nuclear] weapon that must have come directly from Beijing, according to the U.S. officials." In October 1990, the activities of KRL led to the United States terminating economic and military aid to Pakistan, following this, the Government of Pakistan agreed to a freeze in its nuclear weapons development program. But Khan, in a July 1996 interview with the Pakistani weekly Friday Times, said that "at no stage was the program [of producing nuclear weapons-grade enriched uranium] ever stopped".[6] 
The American clampdown may have prompted an increasing reliance on Chinese and North Korean nuclear and missile expertise. In 1995, the U.S. Government learned that KRL had bought 5,000 specialized magnets from a Chinese Government-owned company, for use in the uranium enrichment equipment. More worryingly, it was reported that the Pakistani nuclear weapons technology was being exported to other states aspirant of nuclear weapons, notably, North Korea. In May 1998, Newsweek magazine published an article alleging that Khan had offered to sell nuclear know-how to Iraq, an allegation that he denied. United Nations arms inspectors apparently discovered documents discussing Khan's purported offer in Iraq; Iraqi officials said the documents were authentic but that they had not agreed to work with Khan, fearing it was a sting operation.[citation needed] A few weeks later, both India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests (Pokhran-II and Chagai-I, respectively) that confirmed both countries' development of nuclear weapons. The tests was greeted with jubilation in both countries; in Pakistan, Khan was feted as a national hero. The President of Pakistan, Muhammad Rafiq Tarar, awarded a gold medal to him for his role in masterminding the Pakistani nuclear weapons development programme. The United States immediately imposed sanctions on both India and Pakistan and publicly blamed China for assisting the Pakistanis.


Investigations into Pakistan's nuclear proliferation
 
Khan's open promotion of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities became something of an embarrassment to Pakistan's government. The United States government became increasingly convinced that Pakistan was trading nuclear weapons technology to North Korea in exchange for ballistic missile technology. In the face of strong U.S. criticism, the Pakistani government announced in March 2001 that Khan was to be dismissed from his post as Chairman of KRL, a move that drew strong criticism from the religious and nationalist opposition to the President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf. Perhaps in response to this, the Pakistani government appointed Khan to the post of Special Science and Technology Adviser to the President, with a ministerial rank. While this could be regarded as a promotion for Khan, it removed him from hands-on management of KRL and gave the government an opportunity to keep a closer eye on his activities. In 2002, the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed "senior Pakistani Government officials" as conceding that Khan's dismissal from KRL had been prompted by the U.S. government's suspicions of his involvement in nuclear weapons technology transfers with North Korea.

Khan came under renewed scrutiny following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan to oust the fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It emerged that al-Qaeda had made repeated efforts to obtain nuclear weapons materials to build either a radiological bomb or a crude nuclear bomb. In late October 2001, the Pakistani government arrested three Pakistani nuclear scientists, all with close ties to Khan, for their suspected connections with the Taliban.

The Bush administration continued to investigate Pakistani nuclear weapons proliferation, ratcheting up the pressure on the Pakistani government in 2001 and 2002 and focusing on Khan's personal role. It was alleged in December 2002 that U.S. intelligence officials had found evidence that an unidentified agent, supposedly acting on Khan's behalf, had offered nuclear weapons expertise to Iraq in the mid-1990s, though Khan strongly denied this allegation and the Pakistani government declared the evidence to be "fraudulent". The United States responded by imposing sanctions on KRL, citing concerns about ballistic missile technology transfers.

After being accused of dealing in nuclear technology, Khan lashed out at his critics; his letter to the editor in response to a negative article in the British Observer included:

"The article on Pakistan � was so vulgar and low that I considered it an insult to reflect on it. It was in short words a bull-****, full of lies, insinuations and cheap journalism for money and cheap publicity. Shyam Bhatia, a Hindu bas...., could not write anything objective about Pakistan ... insinuated as if Holland is an atomic bomb manufacturing factory where, instead of cheese balls, you could pick up 'triggering mechanisms.' Have you for a moment thought of the meaning of this word? Of course not because you could not differentiate between the mouth and the back hole of a donkey."


2003 revelations from Iran and Libya

In 2003, Libya gave up nuclear weapons-related material including these centrifuges that were acquired from Pakistan's AQ Khan nuclear "black market".In August 2003, reports emerged of dealings with Iran; it was claimed that Khan had offered to sell nuclear weapons technology to that country as early as 1989. The Iranian government came under intense pressure from the United States and the European Union to make a full disclosure of its nuclear programme and, finally, agreed in October 2003 to accept tougher investigations from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA reported that Iran had established a large uranium enrichment facility using gas centrifuges based on the "stolen" URENCO designs, which had been obtained "from a foreign intermediary in 1987." The intermediary was not named but many diplomats and analysts pointed to Pakistan and, specifically, to Khan, who was said to have visited Iran in 1986. The Iranians turned over the names of their suppliers and the international inspectors quickly identified the Iranian gas centrifuges as Pak-1's, the model developed by Khan in the early 1980s. In December 2003, two senior staff members at KRL were arrested on suspicion of having sold nuclear weapons technology to the Iranians.

Also in December 2003, Libya made a surprise announcement that it had weapons of mass destruction programmes which it would now abandon. Libyan government officials were quoted as saying that Libya had bought nuclear components from various black market dealers, including Pakistani nuclear scientists. U.S. officials who visited the Libyan uranium enrichment plants shortly afterwards reported that the gas centrifuges used there were very similar to the Iranian ones.
 

 
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