The chief justice of the Islamabad High Court, Sardar Mohammad Aslam, made the decision after a closed session with lawyers for the government and Khan -- revered by many Pakistanis as the father of the country's atomic bomb.

"The petitioner is declared a free citizen and writ petition is disposed of," said a written order issued by the court.

The 72-year-old Khan has been effectively under house arrest in Islamabad since February 2004, when he confessed on television to sending nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, although he later retracted his remarks.

Military ruler and then president Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan in 2004, but he was kept at his residence, guarded by troops and intelligence agents.

Speaking from his villa, tucked away in one of Islamabad's smartest neighbourhoods, the scientist thanked President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, and the nation for his freedom.

"As far as I have been told, I will go anywhere in Pakistan without any restrictions and I will get whatever security that I had with me previously.

"If I want to travel abroad, I will have to seek permission from the government," he told a bevy of reporters.

"I thank the entire nation for standing by me in this difficult time," Khan later told AFP by telephone from inside his home.

A.Q. Khan release to weigh on aid: US lawmaker The US Congress will weigh Pakistan's decision to release nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan when it next considers US aid to Islamabad, a leading lawmaker warned Friday. Democratic Representative Howard Berman, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called "very alarming" the decision to free the alleged nuclear proliferator after five years effectively under house arrest. "US officials have been prevented from interviewing Khan to try to determine the extent of the damage he has done to world stability," the California lawmaker said in a statement. "Congress will take this into account as we review and create legislation on US-Pakistan relations and the circumstances under which US assistance is provided to Islamabad," said Berman. In Islamabad, a Pakistani court Friday declared Khan -- revered by many Pakistanis as the father of the country's atomic bomb -- a free man after a closed session with lawyers for the government and the scientist. "I am deeply concerned that, by releasing him, the Pakistani government may in effect be giving him license to resume, perhaps directly, his past actions to aid, abet and profit from the spread of nuclear weapons," said Berman. The 72-year-old Khan has been effectively under house arrest in Islamabad since February 2004, when he confessed on television to sending nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, although he later retracted his remarks. Military ruler and then president Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan in 2004, but he was kept at his residence, guarded by troops and intelligence agents.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "very much concerned" about the decision to release Khan.

A State Department spokesman, Gordon Duguid, earlier said Washington could not immediately confirm Khan's release, but told reporters he represented a "serious proliferation risk".

France also voiced unease.

"We are obviously a little concerned by this decision," said foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier.

"We hope that the proliferation activities of Mr Khan and his network in the past are absolutely over," he said.

Friday's decision comes after the United States, one of Pakistan's key allies, on January 12 unveiled sanctions against Khan, 12 associates and three firms linked to his nuclear proliferation network.

The US sanctions forbid them from having business dealings with the US government or private US firms in what the State Department says is a renewed bid to make sure the network has been shut down entirely.

Pakistan considers the Khan affair "a closed chapter" and has "extended its fullest cooperation to the international community," foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said.

Asked whether he felt there was any threat to his life, Khan said: "Nobody would want to hurt me." Pointing to the sky, he said: "If it (death) comes, it comes there not here."

Khan, who had cancer surgery in 2006, at one point sat down in a waiting chair while talking to journalists, but he later insisted to AFP that his health was fine and he was having regular check-ups.

The court order noted that Khan's counsel argued his client "is not involved in any criminal activity, including so-called nuclear proliferation, and he (should) be declared a free citizen with due state protection".

The terms and conditions of his release will not be made public, in accordance with an agreement between Khan's lawyer and the government, it said.

Talat Masood, a Pakistani defence and security analyst, said Khan's release would be welcomed at home but warned that it would ring alarm bells abroad.

"There will be renewed international pressure on the government to keep him under close scrutiny," he told AFP.

In June last year, former UN arms inspector David Albright urged the US government to pressure Pakistan to allow US or UN experts to question Khan over the sale of nuclear know-how to Iran or North Korea.

"Pakistan has taken all necessary measures to promote the goals of non-proliferation as a responsible nuclear weapon state," Basit said.

earlier related report
Pakistan's nuclear father A.Q. Khan free at last
Pakistan nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, declared a free man Friday after five years of house arrest, is a national hero to millions but a dangerous thief to his detractors.

The security barriers had been removed from Khan's road -- one of the most expensive streets in Islamabad -- but the doors to the sprawling residence were not yet to open for visitors, and security officials remained outside.

Credited with fathering Pakistan's nuclear bomb and matching the atomic weapons developed by arch-rival India, Khan was lauded for making national defence "impregnable" and immediately became a domestic superstar.

But his record hit controversy when he was named in allegations that Pakistan's nuclear expertise was clandestinely sold to a gallery of rogue states and Western foes: Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Government officials, who had been determined to see Pakistan secure a nuclear weapon, accused Khan of being at the heart of shadowy trade between Pakistani scientists and the international black market.

"I thank the entire nation for standing by me in this difficult time," Khan told AFP by telephone after the court declared him free.

"I look back and I thank Allah that time has passed," he said.

Born in Bhopal, India on April 1, 1936, Khan was just a young boy when his family migrated by train to Pakistan during the bloody 1947 partition of the sub-continent at the end of British colonial rule.

He did an undergraduate science degree at Karachi University in 1960, then went on to study metallurgical engineering in Berlin before completing advanced studies in the Netherlands and Belgium.

The 72-year-old's contribution to Pakistan's nuclear programme was the procurement of a blueprint for uranium centrifuges, which transform uranium into weapons-grade fuel for nuclear fissile material.

He was charged with stealing it from The Netherlands while working for Anglo-Dutch-German nuclear engineering consortium Urenco, and bringing it back to Pakistan in 1976.

On his return to Pakistan, then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto put Khan in charge of the Pakistan government's nascent uranium enrichment project.

By 1978, his team had enriched uranium and by 1984 they were ready to explode a nuclear device, Khan later said in a newspaper interview.

The publication of the 1998 interview saw Pakistan slapped with international sanctions and sent its economy into freefall.

Khan's aura began to dim in March 2001 when then president Pervez Musharraf, reportedly under US pressure, removed him from the chairmanship of Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) and made him a special adviser.

But Pakistan's nuclear establishment never expected to see its most revered hero subjected to questioning.

The move came after Islamabad received a letter from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN watchdog, containing allegations that Pakistani scientists were the source of sold-off nuclear knowledge.

Khan said in a speech to the Pakistan Institute of National Affairs in 1990 that he had shopped around on world markets while developing Pakistan's nuclear programme.

"It was not possible for us to make each and every piece of equipment within the country," he said.

"We devised a strategy by which we would go and buy everything we needed in the open market."

Khan believed in nuclear defence as the best deterrent. Talking to The News after the 1998 tests, Khan said Pakistan "never wanted to make nuclear weapons. It was forced to do so."

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