A Q Khan ran private N-proliferation network: Report

ISLAMABAD: Asserting that disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan had run his own "private" proliferation network, the Pakistani military has said he did not name any
"state functionary" during his interrogation but only two ex aides of former Premier Benazir Bhutto in this connection.

At the first-ever briefing of Pakistan Parliamentarians about the country's nuclear programme on Friday, an official of the Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division (SPD) said, Khan has not named any "state-functionaries" in the ten "de-briefing" sessions that were conducted after his arrest in 2004.

Khan, currently under house detention, ran his own private nuclear proliferation network in the period from 1987 through 1998 during different governments and it was a "sole act of an individual," Director General of Strategic Planning Division, Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai, said in his three-hour briefing to over 50 odd Parliamentarians of the country.

"A disclosure was made that Khan did not name any state functionary in 10 de-briefing sessions, except two dead individuals--  Maj-Gen Imtiaz Ahmed, military secretary to executed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Defence Advisor to her daughter exiled Premier Benazir Bhutto, and Bhutto family friend dentist Dr Zafar Niazi-- in this regard," local daily 'The News' quoted officials as saying.

The briefing was attended among others by some MPs of Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).