The disgraced founder of Pakistan's nuclear program has informed investigators that he supplied rogue states with nuclear technology with the full knowledge of the country's ruling military elite, including President Pervez Musharraf, a friend of the nuclear scientist was reported as saying on Tuesday.
Abdul Qadeer Khan has confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, senior officials said on Monday.
Many analysts and most Pakistanis suspect the government of seeking to pin the blame on Khan for a potentially lucrative trade of which, they say, the country's all-powerful army chiefs must have been aware.
According to an unnamed friend who spoke to the Associated Press, the nuclear scientist last week told government investigators: "Whatever I did, it was in the knowledge of the bosses."
Khan reportedly told his friend that two former military chiefs -- General Mirza Aslam Beg and General Jehangir Karamat -- and Musharraf had been "aware of everything" he was doing. "I am also convinced that he couldn't act unilaterally," Khan's friend said.
An army spokesman, Major-General Shaukat Sultan, dismissed the allegation that Musharraf had been aware of the nuclear sales.
"It is absolutely wrong," he said. The president "was not involved in any such matter. No such thing has happened since he seized power in 1999."
Khan was sacked from his job as a government adviser on Sunday after Musharraf was informed of his alleged confession.
The two retired army chiefs, Karamat and Beg, have assisted investigators during the two-month inquiry into long-simmering allegations of nuclear proliferation. But officials say they are not under investigation.
As further alleged details of Khan's confession emerged on Tuesday, officials reasserted that Khan had sold nuclear technology for his own benefit, despite initial reports that he had been raising funds for nuclear research.
They said Khan had smuggled sophisticated centrifuges used to refine uranium, and other equipment to Iran, Libya and North Korea via Malaysia and the Middle East.
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