Bhutto alleges nuclear 'cover-up'

Benazir Bhutto: Khan is scapegoat

Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan could not have leaked nuclear secrets on his own, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto says.

Ms Bhutto said she believed senior government or military figures must have known what was going on.

"We believe there's a cover-up... there are certainly others involved," she told the BBC's Asia Today programme.

A government spokesman rejected the allegations and said the scientist had acted independently throughout.

Dr Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, was pardoned in January after admitting leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Many observers are sceptical that he could have done what he says he did without the powerful military knowing.

'Real culprits'

Ms Bhutto said she wanted the matter investigated further - but she doubted any light would be shed on the role of President Pervez Musharraf, whom she accused of being "reckless".

"General Musharraf would like the world to believe that Dr Khan is responsible for the export of nuclear technology, but nobody in Pakistan buys that," she told the BBC.

I'd like to know whether the president or the prime minister changed that policy [of no nuclear exports] or whether the army acted in defiance Former Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto

The scientist was a scapegoat who people thought had been carrying out orders, she said.

The fact he had been pardoned sent the wrong message to would-be exporters of weapons of mass destruction.

"We want the real culprits identified so that this can never happen again."

Ms Bhutto said she had run a policy of "no exports of nuclear technology" when she had been in power.

"I'd like to know whether the president or the prime minister changed that policy or whether the army acted in defiance of the president or prime minister, or whether intelligence acted as an independent operator."

Ms Bhutto, one of President Musharraf's bitterest critics, has been living in self-imposed exile in Britain and the United Arab Emirates since 1999. She faces a string of corruption cases if she returns to Pakistan.

'Dishonest'

The Pakistani government has said throughout the scandal that Dr Khan and other scientists acted entirely of their own accord.

Dr Khan is under military detention at his residence

Speaking to the same programme, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied any cover-up.

"Not a single government was involved in this nuclear proliferation - that was a personal act of these two or three scientists."

He accused Ms Bhutto of being corrupt, dishonest and power-hungry, and of manipulating the media.

Pakistan had launched investigations when it had been informed of possible wrongdoing by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the minister said.

Meanwhile, a court in Pakistan has rejected petitions filed by the families of six detained scientists and officials accused of leaking nuclear technology.

The Lahore High Court judges made their decision after the government showed them classified information relating to the investigation under way.