A Pakistani court Monday ruled that nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan can travel within the country to visit relatives, but barred him from giving interviews on proliferation.

Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, has been effectively under house arrest in Islamabad since February 2004, when he confessed on television to transferring nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Islamabad High Court judge Sardar Mohammad Aslam said in an order obtained by AFP that "no restriction shall be placed on his visit in Pakistan to meet any of his close relations subject to security clearance."

The scientist's wife earlier this month lodged a court challenge against the restrictions on her husband, who had cancer surgery in 2006.

"Dr A.Q. Khan will be allowed to meet his close relatives and friends subject to security clearance and necessary precautions... taken in regard to security and safety which is of paramount importance," the court order said.

But it said that Khan "will not give interviews to any channel, to a news reporter from a print or electronic media in any manner whatsoever in respect of the issue of proliferation."

Khan was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2004 but has been kept at his Islamabad villa ever since, guarded by troops and intelligence agents.

Musharraf has rejected international demands for access to Khan.

Khan has angered the authorities with a series of recent media interviews, including several in which he alleged that the US-backed Musharraf knew he was taking centrifuges to North Korea in 2000.