Sat 16 May 2020:
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the architect of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, has petitioned the country’s top court to say he is being “kept prisoner” by government agencies and not allowed to plead his case for freedom of movement.
Dr Khan, who was sacked from his official position, was granted clemency by then president Pervez Musharraf.
He has since lived a heavily guarded and mostly secluded life in an upscale Islamabad neighbourhood. Authorities say he is under guard for security reasons.
“I had been kept as a prisoner having no free movement or meeting with anybody,” Dr Khan said in a handwritten note submitted to the Supreme Court on Thursday, May 14.
The former nuclear scientist filed a petition last year saying that, despite earlier court orders allowing him freedom of movement under agreed terms, he was still kept under restraint and in fear of “physical harm”.
On Thursday, he sent a note to the judges hearing his case saying he was to appear before them the day before, but agents of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) did not take him to the courtroom despite bringing him into the court building. The court has directed the government to respond to Dr Khan’s petition.
“We haven’t received notice yet but it will come,” Pakistan’s Attorney-General Khalid Jawed Khan told Reuters by text, adding the court has to decide if it will accept the petition for regular hearing.
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