Hindustan Times

Pak hands over 3 N-scientists to US Mubashir Zaidi (Islamabad, October 30)

Three retired nuclear scientists who used to work for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) have been handed over to US authorities who will investigate their alleged links with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, media reports said here on Tuesday.

Two of them were taken into protective custody last week. The other was detained over the weekend, though the Pakistan government did not give details about his detention.

Military spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi denied the report and said that one of the scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood was in hospital. Qureshi said it was wrong to assume that these scientists have helped the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. "They were working in a section of the PAEC which has no link with the section that worked on the weapons side," he said.

But Mahmood’s family confirmed that he was brought home on October 26 after being held and was picked up again on October 28. It is now believed that Mahmood and two of his colleagues -- former PAEC chief engineer Abdul Majeed and an engineer Mirza Yousaf -- have been handed over to a joint investigating team of the FBI and CIA.

Mahmood, who resigned from the PAEC when Pakistan considered signing the CTBT, ran an NGO called Ummah Tameer-e-Nau in Afghanistan. "But US and British intelligence agencies believe that Dr Bashir and his NGO was directly connected with Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network and Dr Bashir’s team was trying to develop a nuclear programme for Afghanistan by smuggling nuclear materials from Russia and Central Asian states," a newspaper report claimed.

Mahmood’s family said he was brought home in a precarious mental and physical condition.

"... After initial investigations Dr Bashir was nervous, quiet and under extreme stress. ... Throughout the two and half days at home he was constantly watched and nobody was allowed to meet him," a family member said.

On Sunday, Mahmood told his family that if they did not hear from him in a few days, they must presume him dead. "He has even left behind a will advising his family on how to share the property," his family said.

Official version

No scientist has been handed over to the US

The three scientists did not work in the PAEC weapons programme

Wrong to assume that they have links with Taliban or Al-Qaeda

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001