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Three main suspects confessed to plot to assassinate Musharraf
Karachi, June 09: A prosecution witness who interrogated Islamic militants accused of trying to kill Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf testified at their trial today that the three main suspects had admitted to the crime.
Karachi, June 09: A prosecution witness who interrogated Islamic militants accused of trying to kill Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf testified at their trial today that the three main suspects had admitted to the crime.
Judicial Magistrate Farid Anwer Qazi said that he recorded confessions of Mohammed Imran, Mohammed Hanif and Mohammed Ashraf when they made their initial statements to him after their arrests last year.
"I repeatedly warned the suspects that if they give confessional statement, the same could be used against them in trial but they gave the statements voluntarily," Qazi said in the witness box.
Imran, Hanif, Ashraf and another defendant - Mohammed Sharib - allegedly belong to the banned militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen al-Almi. A fifth defendant, Mohammed Wasim Akhter, is a former officer of the rangers, a Pakistani paramilitary group. All five have pleaded innocent to charges of conspiracy, attempted murder and the use of explosives.
On April 26, 2002, Musharraf was traveling from Karachi airport to the center of the southern city when his car drove past a parked vehicle loaded with explosives, police said. The assailants had planned to use them to kill the President, but their remote-control device malfunctioned, the prosecution says.
When the trial opened on June 7, police inspector Mohammad Hasan Khaskheli told the anti-terrorism court that two defendants, Imran and Hanif, admitted their roles in the attempted assassination while being questioned in an unrelated case.
Bureau Report
"I repeatedly warned the suspects that if they give confessional statement, the same could be used against them in trial but they gave the statements voluntarily," Qazi said in the witness box.
Imran, Hanif, Ashraf and another defendant - Mohammed Sharib - allegedly belong to the banned militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen al-Almi. A fifth defendant, Mohammed Wasim Akhter, is a former officer of the rangers, a Pakistani paramilitary group. All five have pleaded innocent to charges of conspiracy, attempted murder and the use of explosives.
On April 26, 2002, Musharraf was traveling from Karachi airport to the center of the southern city when his car drove past a parked vehicle loaded with explosives, police said. The assailants had planned to use them to kill the President, but their remote-control device malfunctioned, the prosecution says.
When the trial opened on June 7, police inspector Mohammad Hasan Khaskheli told the anti-terrorism court that two defendants, Imran and Hanif, admitted their roles in the attempted assassination while being questioned in an unrelated case.
Bureau Report