LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday ordered the government to provide immediate medical facilities to nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, his lawyer said.

Khan has filed a string of complaints in court against security arrangements to which he has been subject since his five-year house arrest for operating a nuclear proliferation network was lifted in February 2009.

The latest complaint was filed in the Lahore High Court after police and security agencies allegedly came into Khan's house and barred relatives, friends and doctors from visiting and denied him bottled water.

Khan has been in good health since he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in September 2006.

“The court ordered the authorities to immediately restore medical facilities of Mr A.Q. Khan and directed them to provide security according to a prior agreement,” Khan's lawyer Ali Zafar told AFP.

“Police came to his house on Saturday and he was barred from meeting anyone, even his family members and doctors and he was also forced to drink tap water,” Zafar said.

The lawyer said police last month obtained court authorisation to enhance security measures, citing threats on Khan's life.

Judge Chaudhry Ijaz summoned Pakistan's attorney general to appear in court on February 19 to explain the government's position on the issue, he added.

In 2004, Khan admitted on television that he leaked nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya, although he later retracted his remarks.

The United States has warned that 73-year-old Khan still represents a nuclear proliferation risk and has long raised fears about the scientist.

After Khan's televised “confession” in 2004, then president Pervez Musharraf pardoned the scientist, who is revered in Pakistan as a national hero, but he was kept at his residence, guarded by troops and intelligence agents.