'No evidence CIA destroyed dossier on Khan'

Saturday, December 10, 2005   

AMSTERDAM: The Dutch justice minister acknowledged on Friday that the dossier of evidence used to prosecute Pakistani nuclear 

scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan in the 1980s had disappeared, but said there was no evidence of CIA involvement. 

Khan worked in the 1970s for a Dutch-based European nuclear research centre, from which he stole secrets used to develop 

Pakistan's nuclear bomb. He was convicted in absentia in Amsterdam for the theft in 1983, but it was overturned on appeal in 

1985 on a technicality. 

In a letter to the Dutch parliament released on Friday, Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said a formal investigation had 

found the dossier was now empty, except for "a few administrative documents, such as the 1983 verdict and the decision on 

appeal in 1985." 

He said the dossier had likely been destroyed about a decade after the Case concluded, though investigators could not rule out 

other possibilities. 

His ministry would draw up new guidelines to preserve materials from  important cases, he said. "As for the idea that the CIA 

played any role in the manner in which the criminal dossier of Khan was administered, no evidence of that was found," Donner's 

letter said. Last year, Khan acknowledged selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan, who was revered in 

his own country for countering the nuclear threat from rival India, was granted a pardon by President Pervez Musharraf. 

Former Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers said earlier this year that the CIA had insisted the Netherlands not prosecute Khan 

when the theft was first detected in 1975, as well as when he returned to the country in 1986 to arrange an equipment shipment. 

He quoted the CIA as saying it wanted to continue shadowing Khan to find out more about his operations. 

The CIA and Pakistan's intelligence service were covert allies in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and were 

careful to preserve good relations between the two countries. India was a military client of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. 

Khan graduated with a Metallurgical engineering degree from Delft University in 1967. 

In the early 1970s was hired by a subsidiary of the Dutch company Urenco, the Physical Dynamic Research laboratory, which was 

developing ensitive ultra centrifuge technology used for uranium enrichment. For years, Khan had access to confidential nuclear 

secrets that later became the heart of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. agencies