Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan talks to media outside his home in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Friday after a court declared him free from house arrest.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani court freed one of the most successful nuclear proliferators in history, Abdul Qadeer Khan, from house arrest on Friday, lifting the restrictions imposed on him since 2004 when he publicly confessed to running an illicit nuclear network.
Mr. Khan, 73, considered in the West as a rogue scientist and a pariah who sold technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran, is revered as a national hero in Pakistan for his role in transforming the country into a nuclear power.
The ruling to set him free seemed as much a political decision as a legal one, intended to shore up support for the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, which has been derided in the Pakistani press as being too close to the United States. The government has been under intense domestic pressure to free Mr. Khan, and that outweighed the backlash that Mr. Zardari knew the action would cause in Washington.
Issued by a court of limited jurisdiction set up under the previous government, the decision came just days before the Obama administration’s special enjoy to the region, Richard C. Holbrooke, was scheduled to visit Islamabad. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said, “The so-called A. Q. Khan affair is a closed chapter.”
Mr. Khan, taking to reporters after the ruling, credited the new civilian government of Pakistan for arranging the deal that won his freedom and said “I don’t damn care” about the international reaction to his release.
In Washington, officials condemned the move. While it is almost inconceivable that Mr. Khan would again be actively involved in Pakistan’s nuclear program, which has created an arsenal of roughly 100 weapons, there was broad concern that he could reactivate an international black-market network that was only partly dismantled.
“He’s still a proliferation threat,” said Robert A. Wood, the spokesman for the State Department. “We’re very troubled by this.”
President Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said the United States wanted assurances from Pakistan that the onetime metallurgist would never be able to sell nuclear expertise or equipment again.
But neither the State Department nor the White House would say whether Mr. Obama was prepared to reverse the Bush administration’s position and demand that Pakistan allow international nuclear inspectors and the Central Intelligence Agency to interview Mr. Khan about his activities over the past 20 years.
Those investigators, repeatedly rebuffed by Pakistani officials, who insisted on taking questions in writing and only selectively passing back answers from Mr. Khan, have many questions outstanding. Chief among them is whether he sold uranium enrichment equipment to other countries that he visited as he sold Pakistani nuclear technology from the late 1980s until his detention in early 2004. Of particular alarm is relatively new evidence that computers seized from his network had upward of three different designs for a nuclear weapon, some of Chinese origin and others with substantial modifications made by Pakistan for its own nuclear arsenal.
“The key question,” one senior Bush administration official said in an interview last year, “is whether he gave one of his designs to the Iranians,” a possibility that could significantly shorten the amount of time it would take Iran to produce a weapon.
The ruling was accompanied by a secret agreement between Mr. Khan and the civilian government, the contents of which were not disclosed, which may continue to place restrictions on him. It was not entirely clear whether Mr. Khan would be free to leave the country. Nor was it clear how his new freedom would make Mr. Khan any more of a threat than his loose house arrest.
Washington’s concerns were defiantly dismissed by Mr. Khan, who, beaming and smiling, was thronged by supporters and television cameras outside his residence in an affluent neighborhood upon news of his release.
“Let them talk,” he said. “Are they happy with our God? Are they happy with our prophet? Are they happy with our leaders? Never, so why should we bother what they say about us?”
Mr. Khan added, “I would be more worried about what you say about me, not what Bush says or what Dick Cheney says.”
Over the years, Pakistani officials have been concerned that Mr. Khan might implicate others — in the civilian government, the military or the intelligence agencies — as accomplices in the highly profitable network.
But Mr. Khan also made clear that the decision would not have been made without the support of the Zardari government, with which the Obama administration hopes to build a more productive relationship as it seeks to fight the Taliban and Qaeda networks in Pakistan। “All this happened because of the keen interest taken by the president, the prime minister and especially Rehman Malik, who has looked into the case, reviewed it, discussed it with the government, discussed it with the concerned authorities,” Mr. Khan said. Mr. Malik is the senior official in the Pakistani Interior Ministry.
The lifting of restrictions served to pacify the powerful conservative lobby in Pakistan that wanted greater freedoms for Mr. Khan, according to Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani Army general. “This has taken away pressure on the government,” Mr. Masood said.
“The government will go out of its way to assure the international community and the United States in particular that he will devote most of his time to education and do nothing on nuclear matters,” Mr. Masood added. “That’s very important for Pakistan’s credibility.”
Other analysts agreed. “A. Q. Khan’s release is a good symbolic move that is likely to restore faith in the civilian government’s bid to sustain its sovereignty,” said Rafia Zakaria, a columnist for The Daily Times, a leading English newspaper in Pakistan. “Something which is essential if Pakistanis are to believe that the war on terror is not just being fought at America’s behest and is something in their own interest.”
In the most recent investigations, the Khan network was found to have trafficked in a tested, compact and efficient bomb design that could significantly shorten the time needed to build a weapon and could be delivered by many existing missiles, like the Shahab-3 in Iran. But in the interviews with local television networks outside his residence, Mr. Khan said his 2004 confession to involvement in proliferation was a “matter of the past.”
The lawyer for Mr. Khan, Ali Zafar, said the court ruled that he was a “free citizen” entitled to fundamental rights. The decision, according to Mr. Zafar, said that Mr. Khan was not involved in criminal or proliferation activities and hence his confinement to house arrest was illegal. The former president, Pervez Musharraf, had pardoned Mr. Khan.
The ruling also said that Mr. Khan would be given full protection by the state, the details of which were outlined in a secret document, Mr. Zafar said. Pakistani news reports said the implications of the agreement that prompted the court ruling were unclear.
Mr. Masood said one of the reasons it was unlikely Mr. Khan would travel abroad was because of the threat of abduction by people who wanted his information. According to Pakistani press reports, under the court ruling Mr. Khan must give 48 hours’ notice if he wants to leave Islamabad.
The Zardari government had already eased some of the restrictions placed on Mr. Khan by the house arrest order of the Musharraf era. For example, he was allowed to eat at restaurants, and wrote newspaper articles.
Last month, the United States State Department announced sanctions on 13 people, including Mr. Khan, and three private companies that the United States said were involved in the Khan nuclear proliferation network.
In its announcement, the State Department specified that Mr. Khan and his associates provided Iran and Libya with centrifuge components, designs and, in some cases, complete centrifuges. According to the statement, the United States also believed that Mr. Khan and his associates provided centrifuge designs, equipment and technology to North Korea, though the intelligence agencies have backed away from allegations several years ago that the North used those to build secret facilities.
Salman Masood reported from Islamabad, and David E. Sanger from Washington. Jane Perlez contributed reporting.
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