|
11 Jundallah members sentenced to death
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court yesterday sentenced 11 members of an Al Qaeda-linked radical group to death for a 2004 attack on a top general in Karachi that killed 11 people.The extremists from Jund Allah, or Army of God, were found guilty of firing on the car of General Ahsan Saleem Hayat, the then corps commander of Karachi, as he drove through the southern city in his motorcade on June 10, 2004. Saleem survived the shooting and later became deputy chief of the Pakistani army, but at least seven soldiers, three policemen and a passerby died in the hail of bullets. The prosecution has produced witnesses, the charges against you have been proven and you are hereby sentenced to death, Judge Feroz Muhammad Bhatti told the men as he announced the verdict to the court in Karachi. The bearded convicts wearing traditional smocks and tunics shouted Allahu Akbar (God is Great) and We will accept death punishment even if it is awarded 10 times as Bhatti finished reading the judgement. The groups ringleader, Atta-ur-Rehman, said after the verdict that the men would appeal against the verdict of the kangaroo court. Tell Musharraf so that he can tell Bush that such punishments cannot block our way, he added. One Atta-ur-Rehman will die and another will be born. Like other militant groups, Jund Allah was enraged by Pakistani President Pervez Musharrafs close ties with his US counterpart George W Bush and by Islamabads crackdown on Islamic extremism. Members of Jund Allah were trained in camps run by Al Qaeda in the rugged tribal area of South Waziristan near the Afghan border, where Pakistans military is engaged in an ongoing hunt for militants. Prosecutor Maula Bakhsh Bhatti said the militants had confessed to carrying out the attack. The prosecution has proved its case and they themselves have confessed and declared that it is jihad (holy war), he said. The judge also ordered them to pay fines of Rs50,000 ($833) each and pay twice as much to the relatives of those killed. Five other members of the group have been declared absconders in the case but were not sentenced. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-22 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=143437 |