Karachi, June 23: A Pakistani judge today said the atmosphere in Karachi was too tense to deliver the verdict in the trial of the May 2002 terror attack that killed 11 French engineers. Judge Feroze Mahmood Bhatti had been scheduled to announce the verdict on two Islamic militants charged over the blast, but postponed it to June 30. "The judge has adjourned the verdict until next Monday due to a general law and order situation in the city," chief prosecutor Maula Bux Bhatti told a news agency. The prosecutor said by-election for a national assembly seat in Karachi's tense Landhi district was behind judge Bhatti's decision.

Heavy contingents of police and paramilitaries were developed throughout the city to prevent an eruption of tension between the chief contestants Muttahida Qaumi movement and the Islamic Parties' Alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.


The judge feared security at Karachi's central jail, where the trial has been conducted since early April and the verdict was to be announced, may be inadequate, prosecutor Bhatti said.

Prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for defendants Asif Zaheer and Mohammad Bashir, who are being tried for terrorism, using explosives and conspiracy to murder.

They are alleged to have plotted the attack, in which an explosives-laden Toyota Corolla ploughed into a bus which had just picked up the engineers from the Sheraton Hotel to take them to Karachi's naval dockyards.


The Frenchmen had been helping Pakistan's navy build its first locally-assembled Agosta B-90 submarine. Bureau Report