Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, known for transferring nuclear weapons technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya through a black market he built, died Sunday of complications of the lungs, government officials said. He was 85.
Dubbed the "father of Pakistan's nuclear program," Khan, who had a destabilizing influence on the global nuclear nonproliferation regime, also played an instrumental role in the South Asian country's nuclear weapons development.
In 1998, Khan led Pakistan to become the first Muslim nation to successfully conduct a nuclear test. In February 2004, he confessed on state TV to providing nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran through the nuclear arms black market run by him, and apologized.
After the revelation, Khan was pardoned by the government but placed under house arrest at his home in the capital Islamabad. He was later granted limited freedoms but his movements were closely monitored.
"He was loved by our nation (because) of his critical contribution in making us a nuclear weapon state," Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted. "This has provided us security against an aggressive much larger nuclear neighbour. For the people of Pakistan he was a national icon."
Khan was hospitalized for weeks after contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in August, and continued to have health issues even after he was released from the hospital, a family friend said.
The scientist was brought to an Islamabad hospital on Sunday morning after he suffered breathing problems at home, a government official said, adding that as his condition worsened, doctors found bleeding from the lungs.
Khan was born in Bhopal in central India on April 27, 1936. He later migrated to Pakistan and, while at an international consortium in the Netherlands, acquired the technology to enrich uranium with centrifuges.
After returning to Pakistan in the mid-1970s, he engaged in the country's nuclear development as an expert in uranium enrichment, at such institutions as Khan Research Laboratories, which he led.
Khan underwent surgery for prostate cancer in September 2006.
