Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan strikes again
The disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist reemerged from five years of house arrest as a columnist, only to be caught for heavily plagiarizing the websites of British universities.
By Issam Ahmed | Correspondent 09.02.09
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – The world’s most infamous agent of nuclear proliferation, Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, has added a fresh feather to his cap following revelations that a newspaper column he penned two weeks ago for Pakistan’s The News heavily plagiarized websites of British universities.
Fondly known to many in his homeland as the “father of the bomb” for his role in developing Pakistan’s uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons programs, Dr. Khan was placed under house arrest in 2004 following a confession made to former military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he had leaked nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. (See the Monitor’s profile of Khan shortly after his house arrest was imposed, when we described his public persona in Pakistan as a cross between a CEO and a sports star.)
The newspaper column in question, “Science of computers — part I,” appears to have been lifted almost verbatim, from the computer science homepages of the University of Sussex, Imperial College London, and the University of Cambridge. A blow-by-blow comparison can be viewed in a letter to the editor of Pakistani daily The News, the same paper which carried the original column. (In the letter, the link to the University of Sussex is broken. Click here for the correct page.)
Reaction on the Pakistani blogosphere has been harsh, with one blog carrying the item under the headline “A.Q. Khan Plagiarizing Op-Ed Pieces After Lifetime Of Stealing And Selling Nuclear Secrets” in reference to the allegations of espionage that dogged Mr Khan’s tenure as head of Pakistan’s nuclear program.
A ruling by a Pakistani court in February ordered that he be released from his five-year house detention. But he continued to be dogged by security personnel and his movements were restricted until Aug. 28, when the Lahore High Court stepped in to intervene, securing his freedom. A fresh court order on Wednesday restricting his movements “for his own safety” now appears to throw this into doubt, however.
On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters, “Our concerns over the potential for … proliferation activities by Dr. Khan are well known to the Pakistani government. We believe that he remains a proliferation risk.”
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2. Imran | 09.02.09
I suspect that “strikes again” is used as in when a freed criminal commits another crime after regaining freedom?
The crimes he is convicted of may not be entirely comparable in their gravity but give him a bit more time and he may well live down to expectations.
The guy is a celebrity who likes fame even when the kudos he gets do not rightfully belong to him.
7. bilal ishaq | 09.02.09
i have read his column and in second (last) part of his column he explicitly cited the reference that most of information is taken from british universities. I dont know then how he did he plagiarise?
9. Ratee | 09.03.09
TOO much Pakistan bashing.
Hey lest one forgets there are 2000 Pakistani brilliant scientists working in the Atomic Energy commission.AQ Khan is just one man of the 2000 scientists who has been given too much importance for Pakistan bashing.
If everything was so easy to copy and make an Atom bomb every country would have the atom bomb. Pakistan has an established knowledge and infrastructure that helped it to develop the bomb.
Pakistan being a smaller country has one of the finest scientists that made it possible to stand up to the stronger nations who seek to have hegemony in South Asian region.
Even if some information regarding the bomb was sold by AQ Khan it is never possible to get the expertise to make the bomb by any country as developing the systems and infrastructure and getting the components and thousands of other variables as pointed out by the present Atomic Energy Head. He had also pointed out that AQ Khan is not very strong technically and also pointed out that practical applications of making the bomb is so complicated that books and maps never help in anyway. No one individual can make it possible to make an atom bomb. He said you have to have a large technical scientific base of thousands of trained scientists before you can start thinking of making a bomb.Every specialist only knows their small part while and he said that its the combined knowledge and expertise of thousands of scientists that any country can enter the atomic capability.
So all these selling of atomic secrets consists of lot of exaggeration and fear concept that has frozen the hearts of the elite pool that have atomic bombs already.
10. Ratee | 09.03.09
TOO much Pakistan bashing.
Hey lest one forgets there are 2000 Pakistani brilliant scientists working in the Atomic Energy commission.AQ Khan is just one man of the 2000 scientists who has been given too much importance for Pakistan bashing.
If everything was so easy to copy and make an Atom bomb every country would have the atom bomb. Pakistan has an established knowledge and infrastructure that helped it to develop the bomb.
11. Ratee | 09.03.09
Pakistan being a smaller country has one of the finest scientists that made it possible to stand up to the stronger nations who seek to have hegemony in South Asian region.
Even if some information regarding the bomb was sold by AQ Khan it is never possible to get the expertise to make the bomb by any country as developing the systems and infrastructure and getting the components and thousands of other variables as pointed out by the present Atomic Energy Head. He had also pointed out that AQ Khan is not very strong technically and also pointed out that practical applications of making the bomb is so complicated that books and maps never help in anyway. No one individual can make it possible to make an atom bomb. He said you have to have a large technical scientific base of thousands of trained scientists before you can start thinking of making a bomb.Every specialist only knows their small part while and he said that its the combined knowledge and expertise of thousands of scientists that any country can enter the atomic capability.
So all these selling of atomic secrets consists of lot of exaggeration and fear concept that has frozen the hearts of the elite pool that have atomic bombs already.
12. murtaza | 09.03.09
well look at the american first atomic bomb their missiles there were stolen by them from the germans . . . . Shall i carry ON. As for A q khan he is a true pakistani who has put pakistan on the world stage i am disappointed with pakistani auth that they treat him like this . I think he should stand up as a candidate for for the presidency.
13. Jiggernaut | 09.03.09
Agree with Saad. This blog didn’t even mention that there was a second part to the column, at the bottom of which AQ Khan says that he took the material from British university documents. Isn’t it wrong to level accusations without even allowing the accused a say? This is shabby journalism.
14. Simon | 09.03.09
CSM needs to find some real journalists who can spend their time writing about “real” issues. Come on guys, stop bashing AQ Khan - he may not be an angel, but he has had his share of media bashing, and lets just let him live out the rest of his life in peace. This was a very shabby display of “yellow journalism”… I should look out for the CSM in the grocery store checkout lane alongside OK and Star!
15. Khan | 09.03.09
Oh come on! He only cited it in part two as an attempt to absolve himself after the letter pointing out the plagiarism had been published.
This was an article, an exercise in writing skill, not an academic paper. So, quoting word-by-bloody-word and then writing “taken from the syllabus of famous British universities” doesn’t cut it. That is because it was a feeble attempt to whitewash the article after he’d been found out. Even if it were an academic paper, it wouldn’t have cut it since citation standards as higher there.
Any half-good scientist who has actually spoken to him testifies that the guy’s scientific knowledge was pedestrian at best. More a file-pusher than anything else. A plot-grabber. Just like the plot grabbers in uniform don’t seem to know much about warfare, he didn’t know much about his own science.
17. Riaz Ahmed | 09.03.09
I agree with the author. A.Q. Khan is nothing more than a cheap thief. He stole nuke technology- specifically centrifuge technology from Holland- and pretended to be a great nuclear scientist. He and his army establishment buddies profited by proliferating the stolen technology to unstable countries. That he plagiarized is not a surprise.
18. ali | 09.03.09
very strange how low one can go?well thnaks to inter net ,now every ones knows how BIG ICONS and RESPECTFULL these news papers are new york time,washinton post,daily times and CS Moniotr,crap,crap,lies,lies and war mogers u are,its good news a lot of news papers in west,specially america and uk are shuting down,going bust,thanks GOD,world will be saved from your lies and crap.
the words u people u for AQ khan,netrious,disgraced,evil?he is not he is man of honour,he try to spred the nuke secrets so,weak and small countires can save them selves from thives,murders,land grabers,oil stealer like u,ok?
u want to hang or call disgraced some one?call america and bush and a lot ones before him
american soilders are disrespectfull and disgraced,who are nothing but small time payed killers,we are sick and tired of u in our country,get got get lost!
20. ANTHRAX-THERMATE | 09.20.09
Excellent blog.
The american bastards staged 911 to get the foothold in afghanistan to target pakistan, steal central asian oil and harass china, iran and russia from there. Blackwater is a TERRORIST group which has now changed its name to chinese sounding, Xe services, a further PROOF of these DECEPTIVE bastards. The FBI BASTARDS create false hype of HARASSING muslims in the USA and providing false material for the ZIONIST media, but these FEDERAL BUREAU of INCOMPETENTS have not caught the ANTHRAX MAILER. No one believes that the gentle giant, Ivins was ever the ANTHRAX mailer. Its the JEW by the name of ZACK. Counterpunch has many stories on this. Pakistani thinktanks should start investigating AMERICAN TERRORISTS operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the media should cooperate in exposing them with the help of international media, RussiaToday and Aljazeera. We should also call the FBI by their competency. They are wasting TAX PAYER MONEY on harassing islam. The bastards never caught MADOFF JEW till be exposed himself. The bastards are deliberately ENTRAPPING muslims.
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1. Saad | 09.02.09
Really shabby piece of journalism points to another shabby piece which in turn points out the problems with another shabby piece of journalism by a scientist who seems to have forgotten how to cite. I am disappointed with CS Monitor, do you guys have nothing better to print? Besides, Khan did cite his sources, albeit insufficiently. I really don’t see how he “struck”.