In the dock/A.Q. Khan
Hero at home, villain abroad
Rajeev Sharma

FEW would know that Pakistan’s Dr A.Q. Khan, a hero at home but a villain abroad, is not a nuclear scientist per se, but a metallurgist.

Though he is a devout Muslim who says his prayers five times a day, he is not a rabid fundamentalist of the Al-Qaida kind. He is not known to be a votary of the hijab (burqa or the veil) and jihad culture.

Dr Khan has a Dutch wife, Henny, whom he married in 1963. He has two daughters who do not wear the hijab.

Born in the State of Bhopal on April 1, 1936, he passed his high school in 1952, migrated to Pakistan in August 1952, graduated from the University of Karachi and worked as an inspector of weights and measures in Karachi for three years, a job he got bored with.

In 1961, he went to Dusseldorf and did higher studies in metallurgy at Technische University in Charlotenberg, West Berlin.

In September 1963, he moved to Holland and continued studies for his master’s in physical metallurgy at the Technological University of Delft. During the fourth year, he was appointed assistant to the world-renowned Prof Dr W.G. Burgers.

He completed his master’s in June 1967 and continued to work with Prof Burgers as research assistant till February 1968, when he accepted an offer of research fellowship from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and got his doctorate of engineering in physical metallurgy in 1972.

In early 1972, he joined the FDO Technical Advisers, Amsterdam. The FDO was providing technical services to a demonstration uranium enrichment project being established at Almelo by URENCO, a consortium of Britain, the Netherlands and Germany.

Dr Khan was permitted to visit the Almelo plant and was assigned a translation job related to German design papers. During this assignment he reportedly took the help of a company photographer, Veerman, to copy design information.

He returned to Pakistan in December 1975 while still working at the FDO. Nobody seems to have a clue on his return to Pakistan. According to his biographer Zahid Malik’s account, Dr Khan had written a letter to the then Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1974, offering his services to his country. During his 1975 visit to Pakistan, Dr Khan called on Bhutto in his office and agreed to return to Pakistan to work on the country’s nuclear programme.

During this meeting, Dr Khan offered Bhutto his services to set up an enrichment plant in Pakistan based on the URENCO design stolen by him. Malik has noted in his biography that after this meeting Bhutto thumped his desk and shouted that he would now be able to tame India.

To overcome bureaucratic necessities, a front organisation named the Special Works Organisation (SWO) was formed under the Pakistani Defence Ministry while Mr Ghulam Ishaq Khan, then Finance Minister, was asked to coordinate.

The Pakistan Government gave a green signal to Dr Khan to proceed with the project on July 31, 1976. He established the Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL). Money for the project was arranged by Bhutto from Libya, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

ERL established the Kahuta plant with equipment and materials obtained clandestinely from Europe, Canada and the USA. The plant was based on URENCO’s CNOR-SNOR design of centrifuges using special aluminium. In 1983, a cascade of 2000-3000 centrifuges was ready for operation.

ERL was renamed as Dr A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (AQKRL/KRL) by President Zia-ul-Haq.

The Dutch government filed a case against Dr Khan an October 31, 1983, and he was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on November 1983 in absentia.

In mid-1980s, AQKRL, Kahuta, achieved uranium enrichment to the weapons grade level. His role was limited only to producing fissile material. The field of weaponisation/triggering of nuclear weapons was undertaken by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).

Also in the mid-1980s, AQKRL initiated work on assembling a shoulder-fired SAM system named ANZA with Chinese-supplied components and later also produced the ATGM system for the Pakistan army with Chinese collaboration. Dr Khan also coordinated work for revamping Pakistan Steel Mills at Mangopir, Karachi, with a view to produce defence-related materials.

In the 1990s Dr Khan was instrumental in procuring Nodong missiles from North Korea.

He had little role in the nuclear tests of May 1998. An open tussle ensued between AQKRL and PAEC. Dr Khan was asked to retire from AQKRL in March 2001 against his wishes. Even AQKRL has been recently renamed as the Institute of Industrial Control Systems (IICS).

He founded the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering and Technology at Topi, near Tarbela, to impart quality technical education to students from Pakistan and other Muslim countries.

Dr Khan has remained a controversial figure throughout his career. During his tenure as head of AQKRL, he was allegedly involved in transactions to corner money and was accused of amassing disproportionate wealth and known to own several huge residential complexes. He is alleged to have supplied uranium enrichment technology to North Korea and offered help to Iraq, Libya and Iran in their nuclear weapons programmes. He had also admitted to the Pakistan government that AQKRL scientists had links with Al-Qaida.

A probe conducted by Pakistani intelligence agencies following specific information provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency in November 2003 regarding his role in the Iranian uranium enrichment programme has found him guilty of peddling nuclear secrets. He later confessed that he had passed on the technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea and was sacked from the post of Adviser to the PM on Strategic Programme and KRL Affairs on January 31, 2004.

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