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| India-Pakistan |
| Suspects 'linked to Musharraf plot' |
| 2003-03-09 |
| Pakistani prosecutors yesterday tried to link the attackers of the US consulate with a failed plot to kill Pakistan's president as a magistrate testified in a trial of five suspected Islamic militants accused of masterminding the suicide bombing. The five could face the death penalty in connection with the June 14 attack, in which a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a concrete block outside the consulate in Karachi, killing 12 Pakistanis and injuring 50 other people. Prosecutors argued that the defendants had planned to use the same explosives-filled truck to kill President General Pervez Musharraf two months earlier. But that plot fell through, and they instead used the vehicle for the consulate bombing. Assassinating Perv was not a good idea. Not succeeding in assassinating him was a worse idea... Police say would-be attackers parked an explosive-laden Suzuki pick-up near the Karachi airport and planned to blow it up as a motorcade containing Musharraf passed by on April 26, but the plot failed because a remote control used to set off the bomb malfunctioned. "We're sorry. The cell phone number you have dialed is not a working number..." The defendants have been accused of the plot but have not been indicted. At the trial, Magistrate Fariduddin Qazi said one of the defendants, Muhammad Ashraf, had "made a confessional statement voluntarily" during questioning about the plot to kill Musharraf. Defence attorney Khawaj Naveed Ahmed argued the confession was made under duress. "Okay, I'll confess! Just stop hitting me there!" The five defendants - Ashraf, Mohammed Imran, Mohammed Hanif, and Sharib and Mufti Zubair — face conspiracy, murder and terrorism charges. They allegedly belong to an offshoot of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a militant group linked to the Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. The group was banned in Pakistan and has been labelled a terror organisation by the US. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |