Pakistan's defiant nuclear scientist AQ Khan released

Paul Woodward, Online Correspondent - The National - Abu Dhabi

After being under house arrest for five years Pakistan's nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has been released. Following the judicial order that led to his release, lawyers who have been campaigning for the restoration of Pakistan's Chief Justice Chaudhry and other judges of the superior judiciary who were suspended under the rule of former president Musharraf, are now optimistic that the judges will be reinstated.

When asked by ABC News what he would say to those who suggest he has made the world more dangerous, Dr Khan replied, "I don't care about the rest of the world. I care about my country.

"Obama cares about America - not about Pakistan, or India, Afghanistan, or anyone else," he said. "I have made Pakistan a safer place. That you are standing here and talking, and India not blowing on your neck, this is my contribution."

Time magazine reported: "Although it is unclear whether Pakistan's new civilian government had a hand in his release, Khan offered thanks to President Asif Ali Zardari for lifting the restrictions imposed on him by his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. Zardari may have been averse to the international criticism likely to come from restoring Khan's freedom of movement, but it was a government clarification that was key to the court's decision. A government lawyer told the court some weeks ago that Khan was not under formal house arrest but merely kept under tight security for his own protection. Seizing on that admission, the court said that since there are no charges - and since Khan was pardoned by Musharraf soon after his confession - he should be allowed to move."

ABC News said: "The extent of Khan's international network and the sheer physical presence of some of the materials he sold have led many to believe he was supported by the Pakistani state, something the government have vociferously denied. Khan himself claimed he had sold equipment to North Korea with the full knowledge of the military, then headed by President Pervez Musharraf.

" 'These centrifuges weighed something like half a ton each. You can't put them in your coat pocket and walk away with them,' [Dr. Pervez] Hoodbhoy [chairman of the physics department at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad] said. 'It obviously involved a lot of official support. ... If there were aircraft of the Pakistan air force that flew these centrifuges out - well, obviously there had to be somebody at the top who was also involved.'

"It was not clear whether Khan would be allowed to travel completely freely. He told journalists he would have to seek permission to travel outside the country and said he was free to move around inside. His wife told reporters that the government still held his passport."

In the United States, a state department official said: "We believe AQ Khan remains a serious proliferation risk. The proliferation support that Khan and his associates provided to Iran and North Korea has had a harmful impact on the international - on international security, and will for years to come."

Pakistan's foreign ministry said the government had investigated Dr Khan's past proliferation, shared its findings with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, and put in place tight controls that would prevent anything similar from happening again, the Associated Press reported.

"We have successfully broken the network that he had set up and today he has no say and has no access to any of the sensitive areas of Pakistan," the Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Saturday. "AQ Khan is history."

The Washington Post reported: "Nearly five years after Khan's smuggling operation came to light, the international effort to prosecute its leaders is largely in shambles, yielding convictions of only a few minor participants and no significant prison time for any of them.

"Meanwhile, the much-touted cooperation between the United States and its partners in the investigation of the network also is in disarray. In recent weeks, Washington has faced accusations that it withheld crucial documents from key allies and allowed its spies to run covert operations in friendly countries without permission.

"Worst of all, the recent discovery of nuclear weapons blueprints on computers found in Switzerland and Dubai has prompted questions about whether the damage inflicted by the network was truly contained - or even understood. It is possible, US officials concede, that Khan and his allies shared nuclear secrets with still-unknown countries and, perhaps, terrorist groups, as well."