Pakistani nuclear scientist leaves hospital

KARACHI, Sep 17 (Reuters) Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist who confessed to leaking nuclear secrets, was discharged from hospital today after undergoing a surgery for prostate cancer.

A doctor who treated him told Reuters that Khan had been taken today to a relative's place in the southern city of Karachi under government supervision.

''He is doing fine despite some minor issues and is under intensive post-care treatment,'' the doctor said on the condition of anonymity.

Khan has been under house arrest in Islamabad since early 2004 after admitting to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, but he is still revered by many Pakistanis as the father of their nation's atomic bomb.

Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, the only Muslim state to have done so.

Khan, 70, was transferred to a hospital in Karachi last week for the operation and only relatives have been allowed to visit him as the government has kept his movements a closely guarded secret.

''He is recovering quickly and is in high spirits,'' his wife Henny Khan told Reuters earlier in the week.

The military-run Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate said late on Saturday that Khan would stay in Karachi for ''a few weeks for post-operative care under the supervision of the team of doctors who operated upon him.

US and other foreign investigators looking into nuclear proliferation have not been allowed to meet Khan to question him, but Pakistan has said it has shared all relevant information with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.

REUTERS MQA RK1724