Nuclear proliferation: PPP denies AQ Khan’s allegations
Khan claimed to have transferred nuclear material on orders of then-PM Benazir Bhutto.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) denied Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s earlier assertion that the latter transferred nuclear materials and technology to two countries on the orders former premier Benazir Bhutto.
“Khan’s assertion is a desperate attempt to wash his guilt over proliferating nuclear weapons,” said Presidential Spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar in a statement issued on Saturday. He said that people still remembered Khan’s public apology televised in February 2004 where he admitted his guilt.
The spokesperson said that by implicating Benazir Bhutto, Khan was trying to “lend a semblance of respectability to crime that brought huge embarrassment to Pakistan.”
“It is disgusting that Dr Khan seeks to restore his image by blaming Benazir Bhutto when she is no longer alive,” Babar said. In a separate statement on Saturday, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira echoed Babar’s sentiments.
“Benazir Bhutto is not alive and levelling such an allegation is not fair,” he said.
Meanwhile, Senator Babar said Khan now owed the public another apology for hurling ‘baseless and unfounded’ allegations against her.
Earlier, in an interview given to an Urdu newspaper, Dr A Q Khan claimed that Benazir Bhutto, during her tenure as prime minister, directed him to transfer nuclear materials and technology to two countries. He maintained that was bound to obey a direct executive order, adding that he was not acting in self interest.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 16th, 2012.