Abdul Qadeer Khan died in 2021 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Prime Minister of the time, Imran Khan, called him a "national icon." Fellow scientist Dr Samar Mubarakmand
claimed that Khan was a national treasure.
Back in the 1970s, Khan set Pakistan on the path to becoming a nuclear weapons power.
Born in 1936, Khan emigrated from India to Pakistan. In 1956 he earned a Bachelor of Science, then continued further with his studies.
After
receiving his doctorate in metallurgical engineering from Belgium in 1972, Khan joined the Physics Dynamics Research Laboratory, based in Amsterdam, to conduct studies on uranium.
After learning about
Operation Smiling Buddha, India's
first successful nuclear bomb test on 18 May 1974, Khan contacted Pakistan's then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, offering technology for Pakistan's own nuclear weapons program.
Bhutto replied: "We (Pakistanis) will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will
have our own (nuclear bomb)."
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was then largely built by Khan from uranium centrifuge designs stolen from Holland and
various dodgy suppliers.
Alarmingly, khan later admitted to selling nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya.
Back in the 1970s, Frits Veerman, a Dutch technician working with Khan, reported to his superiors that Khan
appeared to be stealing nuclear documents, materials and technology. He was told to be quiet and later lost his job.
So, Abdul Qadeer Khan was free to use Dutch knowledge to develop the atomic bomb for Pakistan and sell nuclear information to North Korea, Iran and Libya.
