Abdul Qadeer Khan, ‘father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb’, dies aged 85
- The atomic scientist was hailed as a national hero for transforming his country into the world’s first Islamic nuclear power
- But he found himself in the international crosshairs when he was accused of illegally sharing nuclear technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea
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The atomic scientist was hailed as a national hero for transforming his country into the world’s first Islamic nuclear power, but regarded by the West as a dangerous renegade responsible for smuggling technology to rogue states.
He died after being transferred to the KRL Hospital in Islamabad with lung problems, state-run broadcaster PTV reported.
Khan had been admitted to the same hospital in August with Covid-19, it said. After being permitted to return home several weeks ago, he was transferred back after his condition deteriorated.
Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi said in a tweet he was “deeply saddened to learn about the passing of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan”, who he had known personally since 1982. “He helped us develop nation-saving nuclear deterrence and a grateful nation will never forget his services.”
But he was also accused of stealing the centrifuge uranium enrichment technology that he would later use to develop Pakistan’s first nuclear weapon from a nuclear research facility where he had worked in the 1970s, according to research done by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Khan, who held a doctorate in metallurgical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, offered to launch Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme in 1974 after neighbour India conducted its first “peaceful nuclear explosion”.
He reached out to then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto offering technology for Pakistan’s own nuclear weapons programme, which Bhutto famously embraced saying: “We [Pakistanis] will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will have our own [nuclear bomb].”
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After confessing on national television to running a proliferation network to the three countries, Khan was pardoned by then-president Pervez Musharraf but remained under house arrest for years in his palatial Islamabad home.
In his confession, Khan said he acted alone without the knowledge of state officials. However, he later said he had been scapegoated.
In 2006 Khan was struck with prostate cancer, but recovered after surgery.
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A court ended his house arrest in February 2009, but Khan’s movements were strictly guarded, and he was accompanied by authorities every time he left his home in an upscale sector of leafy Islamabad.
“He was loved by our nation because of his critical contribution in making us a nuclear weapon state,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Twitter. “For the people of Pakistan he was a national icon.”
Fellow scientist Dr Samar Mubarakmand said Khan was a national treasure who defied Western attempts to stifle Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
“It was unthinkable for the west that Pakistan would make any breakthrough but finally they had to acknowledge Dr Khan’s achievement of making the country’s nuclear weapons,” he said.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
