London: President Pervez Musharraf said Dr A Q Khan, the disgraced founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme can keep the vast wealth he accumulated selling bomb-making technology to rogue States around the world.

A report in 'The Sunday Telegraph' from Islamabad today (Feb 08, 2004) quoted Gen Musharraf saying he would spare the scientist's property or assets.

"He can keep his money," Gen Musharraf said, adding that there had been good reason not to investigate the origin of Dr Khan's suspicious wealth before 1998, when Pakistan successfully tested its first nuclear weapon.

"We wanted the bomb in the national interest and so you have to ask yourself whether you act against the person who enabled you to get the bomb," he said.

Dr Khan is believed to have earned millions of dollars from his clandestine sale of nuclear know-how, beginning in the late 1980s. Much of the money was funnelled through bank accounts in the Middle East.

His assets include four houses in Islamabad worth an estimated 1.5 million pounds, a villa on the Caspian Sea, a hotel in Mali and a valuable vintage car collection, the report said.

Gen Musharraf said he understood the need for Pakistani scientists to develop a secret overseas network when building their first nuclear weapon.

"Obviously, we made our nuclear strength from the underworld. We did not buy openly. Every single atomic power has come through the underworld, even India," he said.

Dr Khan, 69, made a televised confession of his wrongdoing last week after being confronted by Government investigators.

Since then he has been in a state of limbo, the report said. Despite being granted a pardon, he is under house arrest and has been forbidden to give interviews. "He should not talk for some time," Gen Musharraf told 'The Sunday Telegraph'. A.Q. Khan, the paper noted, sold nuclear technology almost as fast as Pakistan devised it, offering Saddam Hussein a design for a nuclear weapon in 1990, according to a document seized by UN (United Nations) weapons inspectors in Iraq. Saddam Hussein did not take advantage of it because he suspected it was a trap and declined.

Khan then sold it to Libya, Iran and North Korea. With North Korea, it was a swap of the Ghauri missile and missile know-how in return for Pakistan’s nuclear know-how.

The Chinese gave Pakistan short-range missiles but not medium range missiles, which had to be obtained from North Korea in exchange for nuclear know-how, the report said.