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Karachi bomb suspects "absconders"
KARACHI, Feb 24 (AFP) - A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Monday formally declared as absconders five of the seven suspects in the killing of 11 French naval engineers last May, court officials said. A police officer told a hearing presided over by Judge Feroz Mohammad Bhatti that a search for five suspects still at large had been fruitless. "Two were not available at their addresses and three were untraceable," police process server Javed Ahmed said. Bhatti declared them absconders, and adjourned the hearing until March 5.
| Can anyone think of any reason not to consider Pakland an enemy country? If they were ever on our side, they've switched. It's probably time to start treating them like what they are, which is a terrorist state. |
Two other suspects, Asif Zaheer and Mohammad Bashir who were captured in December and January respectively, are being held in custody and have been charged with murder, terrorism and illegal possession of explosives. They could face the death penalty.
| Doubt if it'll come to that, though. Maybe a few months' house arrest, with no teevee... |
Police say Zaheer and Bashir have confessed to their role in the May 8 attack, in which a suicide bomber ploughed an explosives-laden Volkswagen Beetle into a Pakistan navy bus carrying the French nationals. The blast occurred outside the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Karachi, the southern port city of 14 million people that suffered a chain of deadly attacks on Western and Christian targets last year. A month after the attack on the French, a suicide car bomb attack outside the US consulate killed 12 Pakistanis. Police have said that among the five absconders is a militant believed to be the mastermind of the anti-Western violence that has plagued Karachi since the US-led campaign in Afghanistan to crush the the Taliban leadership and al-Qaeda terrorists was launched 16 months ago.
Inspector Mahmoud ("Fatty") Arbuckle and the Keystone Karachi Koppers are no doubt hot on their tail... |
Zaheer belonged to the militant group Harkat Jihad-ul Islami and Bashir, who had fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, belonged to the banned Kashmiri militant outfit Harkatul Mujahedin. Bashir told reporters after his arrest that the man who had ploughed the car bomb into the French engineers' bus was a 26-year-old Pakistani named Rashid, also from Harkat Jihadul Islami.
| Both are Kashmir-based terrorist groups... |
Bashir said he met Rashid on the eve of the attack. The next day he drove in the explosives-filled car with Rashid towards the Sheraton hotel and stepped out of the car before it reached its target. He said Rashid wanted to avenge the killings of Muslims around the world. Zaheer and Bashir have both said they mistakenly thought their targets were Americans and regretted that the victims turned out to be French.
"Drat."
The French engineers were assisting Pakistan's navy in developing its second Agosta 90-B class submarine.
Posted by: Seafarious 2003-02-25 |
