Abdul Qadeer Khan

Abdul Qadeer Khan, Germanized Abdalkadir Chan, ( Urdu عبد القدیر خان, born April 1, 1936 in Bhopal, India) is a Pakistani engineer and is considered the " father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program." In Pakistan and other Islamic countries, he is revered as a national hero.

Early time

Khan was born in 1936 into a Muslim middle class family in Bhopal, India. 1952 Khan went to Pakistan. As an engineering student, he attended the University of Karachi, went after graduation to Germany, where he studied at the Technical University of Berlin and then via the Netherlands to Belgium, where he studied 8 semesters metallurgy at the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands) and 1972 finally the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium doctorate. From 1972 to 1976 he worked for the Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory ( FDO ), a subcontractor of the Dutch branch of the Urenco Group, the Ultra - Centrifuge Nederland ( UCN ) in the UCN facility in Almelo and had thanks to lax security measures access to advanced centrifuge designs, which enabled him to build a Pakistani uranium enrichment. When India tested its first atomic bomb in 1974, the government was alarmed in Pakistan and Khan offered to help. In 1975, the CIA had asked the Government of the Netherlands, not to investigate Khan on suspicion of nuclear theft. The then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto commissioned Khan after his return in early 1976 with the leadership of the Pakistani nuclear research program.

Development of nuclear weapons

Also owning that he had the Swiss family of engineers Tinner supplied nuclear plans, he denied a week later in the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag". Pakistan and the Khan Research Laboratories had " absolutely nothing to do with what Tinner or his sons had on their computers ." He knew the Tinner family since 1976 and would " put hand in the fire " its for them. Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, Urs and Marco had been arrested in Germany in 2004 under the suspicion of having smuggled plans for nuclear weapons to Libya. The three were later shipped to Switzerland. Friedrich Tinner was 2006 released, Urs Tinner end of 2008, his brother Marco Tinner was released in June 2009 from custody. With an arranged by the Swiss Federal Council document destruction in the case of Rheintaler family Tinner obviously not all sensitive nuclear plans in Switzerland have been removed from the world. In the State Archives St. Gallen "sensitive" blueprints from the eighties had been found for an autoclave, such as is used for enriching uranium. For states who sought an illegal nuclear weapons program, such a plan is valuable to the St. Galler prosecutor 's view, which is why they sealed this construction drawings. The Metalworks book had supplied components for the " father of Pakistan's atomic bomb ," Abdul Qadeer Khan network. The German engineer Gotthard Lerch, who was in the summer of 2008 in Germany to court, should have been involved.

21st Century

David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, suggested in June 2008, Abdul Qadeer Khan for questioning about a possible sale of construction plans nuclear warheads. CNN reported on Monday, 16 June 2008 that it was about the open question whether Khan copies of the Pakistani nuclear bomb plans 've sold from 2006 to Iran or North Korea. "For the thing to get to the bottom, we must put pressure on the governments involved ," said Albright in Washington to the media agency and demanded that Khan have been questioned by the United States as well as by the International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA). On the same day showed Khan back allegations that he had sold blueprints for new nuclear weapons to Iran or North Korea. The reports are a lie and " complete nonsense ," Khan told AFP. In reality, there were " Western governments " that would have the nuclear technology developed and sold. After an interrogation by the Pakistani ISI and the signing off of a confession Khan declared on 4 February 2004 on TV that he would take full responsibility for nuclear proliferation, and neither the government nor the army were involved. He asked the nation for forgiveness.

Private

He is since 1963 with Hendrina Khan, a Dutch ( South African born ), married, he had met in The Hague.

Khan, 2004 by the Government of Pakistan under house arrest after he publicly admitted to have Iran and Libya passed his knowledge on to North Korea. He says that he did so only under pressure from the then government and the promise to be subsequently pardoned. This happened, however, until 2009.

He lives with his wife in a suburb of Islamabad.