Pakistan scientist court action

AQ Khan rehabilitated?

Lawyers acting on behalf of Pakistan's government say that restrictions on disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan should be maintained.

They argue that he should not have freedom of movement because he risks implicating the state in nuclear proliferation allegations.

The lawyers were responding to a court challenge by his wife seeking his release from house arrest.

Dr Khan is revered in Pakistan for developing its first atomic bomb.

Irritated

His wife is currently trying to persuade the High Court in Islamabad to end restrictions on her husband's movements, which have been in place since February 2004, when he publicly confessed to transferring nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

AQ Khan has been at the forefront of developing Pakistan's nuclear capacity

In recent months the restrictions against Dr Khan have not been so stringently implemented and he has been allowed to meet family and friends.

But correspondents say he has recently irritated the authorities by giving a series of media interviews in which he implicated institutions of the state in the nuclear secrets scandal.

Earlier this month Dr Khan said that Pakistan transported nuclear material to North Korea with the full knowledge of the army, which supervised a flight of centrifuges to Pyongyang in 2000.

At the time, the current President Pervez Musharraf was head of the army.

Government lawyers say that Pakistan could suffer "sanctions and threats" from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council as a result of his comments.

They have also warned that "anti-state elements in the garb of friends and well-wishers" may want to extricate confidential information from him.

But Dr khan's lawyers argue that such legal arguments were "defamatory and insulting".

"The reply filed by the government is a pack of lies, false and irresponsible," his lawyer Javed Iqbal Jaffery said.

"We have mistreated our heroes in the past and now the government wants to punish Khan."

Dr Khan was pardoned by President Musharraf in 2004 and has mostly remained in his Islamabad villa ever since, guarded by troops and intelligence agents. In recent weeks he has retracted his confession.

Deputy Attorney General Raja Abdul Rahman said it was necessary for him to stay in a "restrained atmosphere" for his own safety because there was a "serious threat" to his life. He did not elaborate.