Associated Press

Canberra, April 26:

Pakistan’s disgraced top nuclear scientist could be murdered to prevent him from revealing that he acted under government orders when selling nuclear secrets, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has alleged in an interview.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, long regarded as a national hero for helping Pakistan obtain a nuclear deterrent against India, confessed in February to transferring sensitive technology

to North Korea, Iran and Libya for money.

“There is a concern amongst many of us that Dr Khan may be killed to silence him, and that it will be shown as a heart attack or something else,” Bhutto told Australian Broadcasting Corp television.

Bhutto claimed Khan would never act alone. “I just know that wherever he went, he went under orders.”

“I know he didn’t do it on his own. They played to his ego, but he didn’t go on his own. He went because he was ordered.”

In his confession broadcast live throughout Pakistan, Khan claimed to have acted with his colleagues without the authority of the government.

Officials at the Pakistan Embassy were not available for comment.