Govt seeks LHC’s permission to investigate Dr AQ Khan

Staff Report

LAHORE: The federal government on Monday filed an application with the Lahore High Court seeking permission to interrogate nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan over a media interview.

Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry of the LHC has deferred until March 24 the hearing of the application and a judgement already reserved on a federal government petition to restrict the scientist’s movement and AQ Khan’s petition challenging such restrictions.

On Monday, Justice Ijaz presided over brief in-camera proceedings, during which the federal government filed the application seeking permission to investigate Washington Post claims that AQ Khan tried to help Iraq and Iran develop nuclear weapons.

The government’s lawyer said in the application that AQ Khan had disclosed national secrets in a recent interview and acted irresponsibly. He said the Washington Post published two articles on March 10 and 14 citing AQ Khan as the source of information. He said the authors expressly mentioned that Jew journalist Simon Henderson had been in unauthorised communication with the nuclear scientist. He said the contents of the articles had national security implications for Pakistan. v

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