Fri Feb 28 04:44:13 UTC 2025: ## Dutch Businessman Key to Pakistan’s Nuclear Program Dies
**NEW DELHI, February 28, 2025** – Henk Slebos, a key figure in Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear program, passed away on February 23rd, according to his close friend and Dutch investigative journalist Marcel van Silfhout. Slebos’s contributions to the A.Q. Khan network, which helped Pakistan develop nuclear weapons, have been widely documented.
Slebos, a metallurgy graduate from TU Delft, met A.Q. Khan while studying in the 1960s. After a career with the Royal Netherlands Navy, he joined Explosive Metal Working Holland and later established his own company, Slebos Research. His relationship with Khan, who fled to Pakistan after being caught stealing uranium enrichment secrets, led to a lucrative trade in strategic goods.
While Slebos insisted he was “helping” and not “smuggling,” he supplied crucial components – not fissile material itself, but essential parts like screws, bolts, and pressure gauges – for Pakistan’s centrifuge program. This included procuring steel tubes from Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.
Slebos’s activities eventually came under scrutiny. He was convicted in 1985 for exporting goods to Pakistan without a license, including a broadband oscilloscope, receiving a one-year prison sentence and a €100,000 fine for his company. His actions facilitated Pakistan’s acquisition of its first nuclear weapon by the late 1980s.
The revelation of Slebos’s role in supplying materials such as O-rings, triethanolamine, and graphite to Pakistan highlights his significant contribution to the country’s nuclear capabilities. His death marks the loss of further insights into the network’s operations during the Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq eras. Slebos’s unique geopolitical philosophy, as described by Van Silfhout, was that “Either no one should have nuclear weapons, or everyone should.” His actions, however, had long-term consequences, with Pakistani nuclear secrets later reaching North Korea and Iran during the 1990s.
First Piper 