August 29, 1980: Canadians Break up A. Q. Khan Purchasing Network

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrests a trio of purchasing agents working for the A. Q. Khan nuclear proliferation ring. The three men, Salam Elmenyami, Mohammad Ahmad, and A. A. Khan, had been under surveillance since July (see July-August 29, 1980). Almenyawi and Ahmad admit purchasing equipment, but say they did not know what it was for. Released the next day, A. A. Khan goes to Montreal railway station, where he removes a suitcase from a locker, takes some documents out of it, and rips them up. The documents will later be found and reassembled. One of them is a paper by an American scientist on the use of centrifuges for enriching uranium. A. A. Khan will tell investigators he was taking the article to another scientist. After ripping the documents up, he goes to the airport, but is arrested. The trio’s two contacts, Pakistani officials Anwar Ali and Imtiaz Ahmad Bhatti, will not be arrested at all. Bhatti will become a senior official at A. Q. Khan’s research facility in Pakistan; Ali will become chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 2006. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 103, 106] The three men will later be put on trial, but A. A. Khan will be acquitted and Almenyawi and Ahmad will receive light sentences (see Late 1980 or After).