A.Q.Khan a free man following IHC acquittal

Islamabad, Feb.5 (ANI): Disgraced Pakistan scientist Dr.Abdul Qadeer Khan has been aquitted of all charges of nuclear proliferation, and has been set free after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) ordered to lift his house arrest on Friday.

IHC chief justice Sardar Muhammad Aslam adjudged that the charges filed in the petition against Khan charging him of giving nuclear know-how to other countries (North Korea, Libya, and Iran) illegally, had not been 'substantiated'.

The Court also declared Khan as a free citizen and said that he is free to move across the country, The News reports.

However, the order said that Khan will have to inform the government about his movements in advance, and asked the authorities to provide a VVIP security cover to him.

Khan came under scrutiny following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan to oust the fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It emerged that al-Qaeda had made repeated efforts to obtain nuclear weapons materials to build either a radiological bomb or a crude nuclear bomb. In late October 2001, the Pakistani government arrested three Pakistani nuclear scientists, all with close ties to Khan, for their suspected connections with the Taliban.

The Bush administration continued to investigate Pakistani nuclear weapons proliferation, ratcheting up the pressure on the Pakistani government in 2001 and 2002 and focusing on Khan's personal role. He had been under house arrest since February 2004. (ANI)