U.S. Doubts Defector's Claim That Pakistan Planned First-Use
Dow Jones Newswires
WASHINGTON (AP)--The U.S. State Department Thursday said it has no evidence to support the claims of a Pakistani asylum seeker that his nation was planning a pre-emptive nuclear strike on India's nuclear facilities.
State Department spokesman James Rubin said, "We do note significant discrepancies in his story as reported in the press," Rubin said. He did not elaborate.
Iftikhar Chaudhary Khan - who claimed to be a nuclear scientist who fled Pakistan once he learned of its plan for a nuclear first strike - is actually a former low-level accountant at a company that makes bathroom fixtures, a company official said Thursday.
Azad Gulzar Sheikh, a director of Forte Trading Company (Pvt) Limited, said he employed Khan as an assistant accountant until November 1997 when he resigned.
Khan joined the Forte Trading Company Limited on Aug. 22, 1993, Sheikh told The Associated Press of Pakistan, Pakistan Television and the privately run Pakistan news agency, News Network International.
Sheikh said Khan wasn't a scientist, according to NNI. On his employment application form, Sheikh said that Khan listed his education as business graduate. Khan earned 5,000 rupees, or the equivalent of $120 a month, when he resigned from Forte.
Sheikh's company makes ceramic tiles and bathroom fixtures and is headquartered in the southern port city of Karachi.
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