UK diplomats attacked, Pakistan scientist’s kin held

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A son-in-law of Pakistan’s disgraced
nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan was being held in custody after an
assault on two British diplomats in Islamabad, police said on
Friday.

A spokesman for the British High Commission (embassy) said
the two diplomats, a man and woman, suffered a “vicious and
unprovoked attack” by several men as they were walking home at
night in a posh district of the Pakistani capital.

The attack took place in the early hours of Sunday morning,
and the two victims required medical treatment, he said. A
motive for the attack had not been ascertained, he said.

Police confirmed Saad Ali Khan, Khan’s son-in-law, was
being held.

“He had some quarrel with the British diplomats,” Safeer
Bhatti, head of Islamabad’s Kohsar police station, said.

“Saad has been taken into custody,” he said.

Khan, popularly know as the father of Pakistan’s atomic
bomb, has been held under house arrest since admitting in early
2004 that he had sold nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North
Korea.

President Pervez Musharraf, who is also army chief, has
described Khan’s admission of guilt as the most embarrassing
moment of his presidency.

A former Dutch prime minister, Ruud Lubbers, stirred more
controversy over Khan this week when he told Dutch radio that
the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had asked the Netherlands
not to take action against the scientist, despite suspicion he
was involved in industrial espionage while working for a Dutch
uranium enrichment company 30 years ago.