ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court yesterday summoned Attorney General Malik Qayyum to explain under which law Pakistan’s nuclear scientist Dr. Qadeer Khan was placed under house arrest.
Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court Sardar Muhammad Aslam, while hearing several petitions, summoned the attorney general to explain the situation. Deputy Attorney General Raja Abdul Rehman had earlier told the court that Qadeer was a free man.
But the nuclear scientist’s Dutch wife in her petition pleaded that Qadeer was not allowed to meet visitors and his health was deteriorating. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry has placed the name of Qadeer’s son-in-law, Nauman Shah, on the Exit Control List (ECL).
Qadeer’s wife said she is challenging his detention in court and suggested officials would be glad if he died without telling his side of Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation story. Hendrina Khan told reporters she appointed an attorney earlier this week to petition the Islamabad High Court for an end to the restrictions on her husband’s movements and for his freedom to speak to the media.
“We have finally made it known to the government that we are no longer willing to sit back and do nothing,” she said, by authorizing a lawyer to act on her behalf. Hendrina said indirect threats of “dire consequences” if they spoke out as well as promises of freedom later had persuaded them to toe the official line in the past. But it is now “high time we told our side of the story,” she said.
She said she had written to Javed Iqbal Jaffri, an attorney who has already petitioned Pakistani courts seeking the scientist’s release. She said judges had rejected earlier petitions from Jaffri by arguing that he didn’t represent the family.
Qadeer, a hero to many in Pakistan for his key role in developing the country’s atomic weapons, has been under virtual house arrest since 2004, when he took sole responsibility for the leakage of sensitive technology to countries including Iran.
President Pervez Musharraf pardoned him, but confined him to his villa in the capital. He has rarely ventured out, save for several hospital stays for a host of ailments and a recent visit to the Academy of Sciences in Islamabad to mourn a deceased colleague.
