Close family members of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, has been named in the Panama Papers, says a report in Pakistani media outlet Dawn. Dr Khan,86, is currently undergoing house arrest in Pakistan.
Dr Khan was put under house arrest in 2004 amid allegations of his involvement in global nuclear proliferation. Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had accused him of running a rogue proliferation network for nuclear material.
According to the report, Abdul Quyuim Khan, the brother of Dr Khan, and Hendrina, his wife, as well as Dina and Ayesha Khan, his two daughters, are all shown as owners of Wahdat Ltd, a company registered in the Bahamas.
“Although the names are not part of the data released online by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Wahdat Ltd does appear on the website. However, it has been named in the larger database obtained by the group. The company was registered in January of 1998, months before the nuclear tests of May that year, and deregistered on Dec 31, 1999, shortly after the Oct 12 coup,” said the report.
However, Dr Khan claimed the he did not know anything about the company. “I have never even heard the name of this company,” Dr Khan told Dawn over phone. “Neither did my wife and daughters. My brother, who died a few years ago, was with Habib Bank and, as you know, bankers are always up to their tricks and hanky panky,” he said without mincing words. “My wife and daughters never signed any documents to create this company. The signatures (on the incorporation paperwork) are surely false. My brother never discussed it with me and my family only heard about this company after the Panama Papers release.”
The company has been shown as an intermediary of ILS Fiduciaries IOM (Ltd), registered in the Isle of Man and still active. That company has links to 611 other entities from various jurisdictions like Panama and Niue in the database, dating back to 1993, most of which are either “inactive” or “defaulted”, the report said.
Dr Khan was put under house arrest in 2004 amid allegations of his involvement in global nuclear proliferation. Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had accused him of running a rogue proliferation network for nuclear material. Shortly after Musharraf’s announcement, a recorded confession by Khan was aired in which he took sole responsibility for all the nuclear proliferation that had been revealed, says Dawn report.
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