ISLAMABAD, Sept 15: The ruling Pakistan People’s Party rebutted on Saturday a claim by the country’s disgraced nuclear hero that he transferred nuclear technology to other countries on the orders of its slain prime minister.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, whom many Pakistanis regard as a hero for building the Islamic world’s first nuclear bomb, admitted in 2004 he ran a nuclear black-market selling secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

He had offered a public apology but later retracted his remarks and in 2009 was freed from house arrest, although he was asked to keep a low profile.

On Saturday, he said in a newspaper interview that he had transferred nuclear technology on the directives slain prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Mr Khan did not name the countries, nor did he mention when Ms Bhutto, the twice-elected woman prime minister, issued the orders. The slain PPP chairperson ruled from 1988 to 1990 and then from 1993 to 1996.

“At least 800 people are used to supervise the process. The then prime minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto summoned me and named the two countries which were to be assisted and issued clear directions in this regard,” Mr Khan said.

“I was not independent but was bound to abide by the orders of the prime minister, hence I did take this step in compliance with her order. The prime minister would have certainly known about the role and cooperation of the two countries, mentioned by her, in our national interest.”

Senator Farhatullah Babar of the PPP described Mr Khan’s assertion as “a belated and desperate attempt to wash the guilt of proliferating nuclear weapons” by associating Ms Bhutto’s name. It is an attempt “to lend a semblance of respectability to a crime that brought huge embarrassment and inflicted incalculable damage on Pakistan,” he said in a statement.

“It is disgusting that almost a decade later Dr Khan should be seeking to restore his image by seeking to lay the blame at the door of the martyred Bhutto when she is no longer alive,” said Mr Babar, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari.

Mr Khan “now owes another public apology, after 2004, to the soul of Ms Bhutto and her followers for levelling baseless and unfounded allegations against her”, he added. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Dec 27, 2007, in a gun-and-bomb attack while leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi.

Dr Qadeer Khan launched his own party — Tehrik-i-Tahafuzz Pakistan — in July with a platform for fighting corruption, with the aim of promoting candidates in the next general elections.—AFP