April 10, 2006: Canadian Prosecutor Says Judge in Trial of A. Q. Khan Associates Was ‘Partial’ to Defense

Former Canadian prosecutor Guy Gilbert alleges that a judge in a trial of three associates of Pakistani nuclear proliferator A. Q. Khan was “partial” to the defense. The allegation is made in an interview for a book by authors David Armstrong and Joe Trento; the trial ended with light sentences for two of the accused and the acquittal of the third (see Late 1980 or After). Gilbert will say: “I remember the address by the judge to the jury. He almost gave them [the case] on a silver fork.” Gilbert will also recall meeting the judge, Gerald Ryan, some time after the trial. “I said, ‘Gerry, don’t tell me that you think those guys did not export the parts to make the inverters.’ He said, ‘Of course, of course they did it.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s not the way it came out when you addressed the jury.’” Gilbert will also say that he speaks to the defense lawyers in the case occasionally: “I tease them once in a while. I say, ‘You think these guys knew what they were doing?… I think you contributed to them [Pakistan] having the bomb today.’” [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 105-106]