Head of Pakistan nuke program paid for loyalty

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 patronage scheme that allowed him to elude suspicion as head of the world's most successful nuclear black market, senior scientists and government officials told The Associated Press on Monday.

Pakistan acknowledged this month that Khan sold high-tech 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 you wanted to attend a seminar or that your daughter was getting married, he would write back and there would be a check in there for you," said Pervez Hoodhboy, a physicist at Islamabad's prestigious Quaid-e-Azam University. "Sometimes there would be $50,000 or $100,000. He was very generous and he bought a lot of support, so people didn't say anything."

Farhatullah Babar, a senator from the opposition Pakistan People's Party, who was also involved in the nuclear program early in his career, said Khan had almost total control to spend government money, and the secrecy of the nuclear program meant there was no oversight.

"The kind of vast administrative and financial powers, without any check on them, that were given to Dr. A.Q. Khan was unprecedented and unusual," he told AP. "The powers given to him were so great that he could use the funds however he wanted. ... Whoever has such great powers, it is a normal human failure to abuse them."

Pakistan is believed to have spent $5 billion on its nuclear weapons program, which it launched shortly after the 1971 war with India. It was not clear how much of the funds were controlled by Khan, but the figures certainly ran into the hundreds of millions.

Khan's supporters insist that he and six other detained nuclear officials have been made scapegoats to cover up government involvement in the nuclear leaks.

Hussam ul-Haq, chairman of the Khan's Release Liaison Committee, which is lobbying on behalf of the detainees, said Monday that the 68-year-old scientist was under immense stress and had suffered a heart ailment over the weekend.

He and other family members demanded proper medical care for Khan, and said that if he died as a result of not receiving it, the negligence would constitute "cold-blooded murder."

Shafiq ur-Rehman, another leading spokesman for the detained scientists' families, said the government was afraid that one day, when he was freed from custody, Khan would tell the real story behind the nuclear proliferation.

"The truth will not be easy to swallow," he told a news conference.

But opponents say that there is no doubt of Khan's guilt -- with or without the government's involvement.

A.H. Nayyar, another physics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University, said Khan portrayed himself as Pakistan's nuclear savior against the threat posed by India. Senior Pakistani journalists and newspaper columnists were said to be on his payroll, said several government officials.

"He meticulously cultivated his image from day one. He doled out state money to create the image of a hero who was untouchable and beyond any investigation. He worked very hard at that and he was very, very clever," said Nayyar.

Nayyar said Khan used the nuclear funds to pay for school playgrounds and university auditoriums, and to help out his friends.

Hoodhboy, a leading peace activist, said Khan could also be vengeful.

After a property dispute involving the university, Hoodhboy claimed Khan got him placed on a no-exit list that barred him from leaving the country.

"People in my profession didn't wonder about his guilt. They knew it," Hoodhboy charged.

Pakistan for months vehemently denied any nuclear leaks, but officials have since acknowledged they were aware at least since 2001 -- when President Gen. Pervez Musharraf removed Khan from his post as head of the country's top nuclear lab.

The decision followed a secret report by an anti-corruption body that found Khan had amassed a $40 million fortune, two senior intelligence officials told AP on Monday.

Despite a $2,000-a-month government salary and no family fortune, Khan lived well. He snapped up property in Pakistan and Dubai, and even bought a hotel in Timbuktu, in the West African nation of Mali. He was known for handing out free food to poor people on Fridays and Saturdays, a practice which greatly enhanced his image as a patriot and a pious Muslim.

Several scientists say they warned the government of suspicious activities as early as 1998, but a formal investigation was launched only in November after Iranian revelations to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Libyan officials also later fingered Pakistan as the source of its nuclear technology, saying it paid millions of dollars to a network led by Khan.

A senior official who briefed reporters after Khan confessed and was pardoned by Musharraf said the government would not go after the money.

Khan, who apologized for the leaks in a nationally televised address this month, is now under virtual house arrest while the government continues its probe.

U.S. officials have said the pardon is an internal Pakistani matter, but others have strongly criticized the deal, including the former U.S. chief weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay.

"I can think of no one who deserves less to be pardoned," Kay said.

Nayyar said he didn't think the deal would allow Musharraf to put an end to the scandal.

"Musharraf is trying to hide the role of the armed forces in proliferation," he said. "But it is a very crude attempt, and I think it is something that the government cannot sustain for very long."

Hoodhboy added that the lenient government response would encourage others to follow Khan's lead.

"It shows that corruption pays and crooks can make off with the money," he said.

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AP reporter Munir Ahmad contributed to this report.