Abdul Kadir Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan , Germanized Abdalkadir Chan , ( Urdu عبد القدیر خان; * April 1, 1936 in Bhopal , British India ) is a Pakistani engineer . He is considered the "father of the Pakistani nuclear program ". In Pakistan and other Islamic countries he is revered as a “ folk hero ”.
Early time
Khan comes from a middle-class Muslim family in Bhopal . In 1952 Khan went to Pakistan. As a mechanical engineering student he attended the University of Karachi , after graduation he went to Germany , where he studied at the Technical University of Berlin and then via the Netherlands, where he studied metallurgy for eight semesters at the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands), to Belgium, where he in 1972 finally received his doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.
From 1972 to 1976 he worked for the Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory (FDO), a subcontractor of the Dutch branch of the Urenco Group, Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland (UCN), in the UCN facility in Almelo and, thanks to lax security measures, had access to the most advanced centrifuge designs, which enabled him to set up a Pakistani uranium enrichment facility . When India tested its first atomic bomb in 1974 , the government in Pakistan was alarmed and Khan offered to help. In 1975, the US secret service, the CIA, asked the government of the Netherlands to stop investigating Khan on suspicion of nuclear theft. The then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto commissioned Khan after his return in early 1976 to lead the Pakistani nuclear research program.
Stance on nuclear weapons
Khan attributes a peacekeeping function to nuclear weapons.
"Had Iraq and Libya been nuclear powers, they wouldn't have been destroyed in the way we have seen recently. If we had nuclear capability before 1971, we wouldn't have lost half our country after a disgraceful defeat "
“If Iraq and Libya had been nuclear powers, they would not have been destroyed, as we saw recently. If (Pakistan) had had nuclear weapons before 1971, we would not have lost half of our country to a shameful defeat. "
In an interview with Der Spiegel , Khan said:
“I firmly believe that I have done what is best for Pakistan. These nuclear weapons ensure peace - and the motto for them is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I am convinced that because of the nuclear weapons there will never be another war between India and Pakistan. "
Private
He has been married to Hendrina Khan, a Dutch woman (born South African), who he met in The Hague, since 1963. Khan was placed under house arrest by the Pakistani government in 2004 after publicly admitting that he passed his knowledge on to North Korea , Iran and Libya . According to his own statements, he only did so under pressure from the government at the time and the promise to be pardoned afterwards. However, this only happened in 2009.
literature
- David Albright: Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America's Enemies . Free Press, NN 2010, ISBN 1-4165-4931-5 .
see. the review in The Economist : NN, Unstoppable? The illicit nuclear trade flourishes because governments let it (March 11, 2010) - Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the AQ Khan Network . Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2006, ISBN 0-19-537523-8 .
see. Washington Post Review : George Perkovich, Cracking the Arms Race (October 17, 2006) -
Egmont R. Koch : Nuclear weapons for Al Qaida: “Dr. No ”and the network of terror . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-351-02588-2 .
see. the review of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : Wilfried von Bredow, Bombengrusel (June 7, 2005) - William Langewiesche: The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York 2007, ISBN 0-374-53132-3 .
see. the New York Times Review : Janet Maslin, When the Small Nations Get the Biggest Weapons (May 18, 2007) - Stephanie Cooke: Atom: The Story of Nuclear Error . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-462-04373-0 .
Web links
- William Langewiesche: The Wrath of Khan . How AQ Khan made Pakistan a nuclear power. In: The Atlantic Monthly , November 2005m cf. literature
- Zaffar Abbas, Pakistan promotes nuclear scientist . BBC, March 12, 2001
- The bomb . Phoenix, October 18, 2009
Individual evidence
- ↑ Carey Sublette: Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan ( en ) The Nuclear Weapon Archive. January 2, 2002. Retrieved July 22, 2008.
- ↑ The Netherlands ran nuclear spies . In: Die Zeit , No. 32/2005
- ^ 'I saved my country from nuclear blackmail. In: tribune.com.pk. May 17, 2011, accessed May 15, 2020 .
- ↑ The interview was conducted by Susanne Koelbl: Pakistan's atomic bomb: "Maybe we are naive, we are not idiots". In: Spiegel Online . June 27, 2011, accessed May 15, 2020 .
- ↑ spiegel.de
- ↑ sueddeutsche.de
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Khan, Abdul Kadir |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Khan, Abdul Qadeer; Chan, Abdalkadir; عبد القدیر خان (Urdu) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Pakistani engineer |
DATE OF BIRTH | April 1, 1936 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Bhopal , India |