MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 2004
Pak detains aides to top nuclear scientist
AP
ISLAMABAD : Pakistan has expanded its investigation of the country's premier nuclear weapons laboratory, detaining as many as seven scientists and administrators for questioning, amid allegations that sensitive technology may have spread to countries such as Iran , North Korea and Libya , officials said Sunday.
Information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that over the past two or three days between five and seven personnel at the Khan Research Laboratories had been taken in for "debriefing."
Among them was Islam-ul Haq, a director at the laboratory. Two uniformed men believed to be intelligence agents picked him up as he was dining on Saturday at the residence of the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
The laboratory is named after Khan, a hero for leading Pakistan to its underground test of the Islamic world's first nuclear bomb in 1998.
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