Pakistan’s lies nailed: North Korea paid millions for nuclear secret

The nuclear scientist considered the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb has claimed that North Korea gave millions of dollars in bribes to senior military figures in exchange for weapons secrets.

Abdul Qadeer Khan signed a confession in 2004 admitting that he had handed classified information to Iran, Libya and North Korea, but his supporters have long claimed he was made a scapegoat by a government that cast him as a rogue operator.

Documents passed to a US nuclear weapons analyst by Dr Khan suggest that high-level Pakistani military officials knew about - and personally profited from - his sales of nuclear weapons technology.

In a written statement, Dr Khan describes helping transfer more than $3 million to senior officers, delivering the cash in a canvas bag and boxes, including one in which it was hidden under fruit.

The revelations have been denied by Pakistani officials.

The account is backed up by a letter, dated July 15, 1998, marked ‘Secret’, and purportedly signed by Jon Byong Ho, North Korean Workers' Party secretary, which says ‘the 3 millions (sic) dollars have already been paid’ to one Pakistani military official and ‘half a million dollars’ and some jewellery had been given to a second official.

It continues: ‘Please give the agreed documents, components, etc to (a North Korean Embassy official in Pakistan) to be flown back when our plane returns after delivery of missile components.’

Dr Khan, who was head of Kahuta Research Laboratories until he was dismissed in 2001, is something of a folk hero in Pakistan.

He spent five years under house arrest after publicly admitting his role in selling secrets but was pardoned by then President Pervez Musharraf and is credited with giving Pakistan a nuclear deterrent to counter the threat from India.