The architect of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme claims North Korea paid bribes to senior Pakistani military officials in return for nuclear secrets in the 1990s, the Washington Post said in a report.
The Post said documents released by nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan purportedly showed him helping transfer more than $3 million to senior officers, who he said then approved the leak of nuclear know-how to Pyongyang. Khan had passed a copy of a North Korean official’s letter to him in 1998, which detailed the transaction, to former British journalist Simon Henderson, who then shared the information with the Washington Post, the newspaper said.
LETTER AUTHENTIC: The Post cited Western intelligence officials as saying they believed the letter was accurate, but said Pakistani officials had denied Khan’s claims, arguing that it was a forgery. Olli Heinonen, a 27-year veteran of the International Atomic Energy Agency who led its investigation of Khan before moving to Harvard Kennedy School last year, was quoted as saying that the letter was similar to other North Korean notes that he had seen or received.
They typically lacked a letterhead, he said, and he had previously heard similar accounts – originating from senior Pakistanis – of clandestine payments by North Korea to Pakistani military officials and government advisers.
The substance of the letter, Heinonen said, “makes a lot of sense” given what is now known about the North Korean programme.
Allegations Baseless: Foreign Office Spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua called the allegations “baseless” on Thursday and said they frequently reappeared in the media. “This is totally baseless and preposterous,” she said during a weekly press briefing.
Khan admitted on national television in 2004 that he passed atomic secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya, but later retracted his remarks and in 2009 was freed from house arrest, although he was asked to keep a low profile. Those secrets are nevertheless widely believed to have allowed North Korea to develop a uranium route alongside its existing plutonium weapons programme.
The letter, dated July 15, 1998, marked “Secret,” and purportedly signed by North Korean Workers’ Party Secretary Jon Byong Ho, says “the 3 millions (sic) dollars have already been paid” to one Pakistani military official and “half a million dollars” and some jewelry had been given to a second official.
It then says: “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.”
In written statements to Henderson, Khan describes delivering the cash in a canvas bag and cartons, including one in which it was hidden under fruit. General (r) Jehangir Karamat, a former army chief said to have received the $3 million payment, and Lt General (r) Zulfiqar Khan, the named recipient of the other payment, both denied the letter’s authenticity to the Post.
Nevertheless, said the paper, if the letter was genuine, it would reveal a remarkable instance of corruption related to nuclear weapons.
US officials had worried for decades about the potential involvement of elements of Pakistan’s military in illicit nuclear proliferation, it said, partly because terrorist groups in the region and governments of other countries were eager to acquire an atomic bomb or the capacity to build one.
The newspaper said the North Korean government did not respond to requests for comment about the letter.
KARAMAT AND KHAN DENY: General (r) Karamat strongly denied the allegations. “I was not in the loop for any kind of influence and I would have to be mad to sanction transfer of technology and for Dr Khan to listen to me,” Karamat told Reuters in an email. The story, he said, was “totally false”.
“No proof is given to indicate authenticity of the letter that is on a single sheet with no official markings and is in language that is not quite what an official would use in my opinion. It pointedly and clearly states matters that no one would ever admit much less commit in writing,” said Karamat.
Lt General (r) Zulfiqar Khan also denied the accusation. “I have gone through the article published by Washington Post… I must emphasise that the whole story is nothing but a fabrication of a mischievous mind,” he said. He claimed the US was taking steps through which it thought it could pitch the Pakistani people against the army.
“This letter is absolutely void of authenticity and credibility for the following reasons: it is not on any letterhead; bonafides of the signature/signing person are not known; it mentions a combined and co-ordinated operation in Pakistan by the CIA, the South Korean Intelligence and the ISI that is incomprehensible and mind-boggling, [and] the reference about myself in the so-called letter from North Korea does not exist in the eleven page account given by Dr AQ Khan to Mr Henderson as referred to by the Washington Post,” he added.