KARACHI, Jan 15: Police announced on Wednesday the arrest of another man for his alleged involvement in plotting the Sheraton Hotel bomb explosion.

Identified as Rizwan alias Bashir, the man was arrested on a lead given by detained suspect Asif Zaheer in the same case.

Eleven French engineers and three Pakistan nationals were killed when an alleged suicide bomber drove next to a bus in which French nationals were sitting near Sheraton Hotel on May 8, 2002, and detonated the bomb.

SSP Investigation (Homicide) Manzoor Mughal, in a press statement, said police raided house No R-515 in Federal B Area and picked up Rizwan alias Bashir, believed to be a close associate of Asif Zaheer. Asif was arrested on December 28, 2002, he claimed.

During interrogation, Rizwan told police that he had played a role in the Sheraton Hotel bomb explosion. Rizwan went to Afghanistan twice to participate in jihad. He returned home in October 2001, one month after 9/11.

Rizwan met Abdus Samad, believed to be the ring leader of the group, in New Town mosque. Samad was in Afghanistan with Rizwan. Police said Samad sent Rizwan and Rashid to buy a car and they chose a Toyota Corolla (J-6560) car of 1974 make in a car showroom at Naseerabad and paid a token money. Samad was informed of the deal, who again sent Akram, whose real name was Sohail, with Rizwan and Rashid, to the car showroom, who paid Rs100,000 and bought the car. The car was driven to the residence of Sohail at B-217, Defence View, where Asif Zaheer and Basit were present.

Asif Zaheer loaded the car with explosives. On the morning of May 8, Rizwan, with Rashid, drove the car to Qasr-i-Naz, where he handed over the car to Rashid to hit the target.

Rizwan told police that after he handed over the car to Rashid he (Rizwan) walked away from the place. Rizwan, a Hafiz Quran, ran a stall at a Juma Bazaar to earn his living.

City police chief Asad Ashraf Malik expressed doubts about the ring leader’s real name being Samad as he said police were of the view that the suspects were concealing the real name of their ring leader. He said the man who sold the car identified Rizwan alias Bashir as the buyer.

Sources, however, said Rizwan alias Bashir had been in the custody of law-enforcement agencies for the past couple of weeks.

The SSP Investigation, in his press statement, had claimed that Asif Zaheer was arrested on December 28, 2002, but the Inspector-General of the Sindh police, Syed Kamal Shah, had disclosed at a press conference that Asif Zaheer was arrested on Dec 15, saying: “On information the police raided a godown on Ameer Khusro Road on Dec 14 and arrested three suspects, Asif Zaheer, Sohail Noor and Mohammed Yusuf.”

He had said police recovered a Volkswagen car (A-2951), 250 bags of ammonium nitrate, grinders, silver powder, other chemicals and detonators, used in making bombs and in carrying out bomb explosions.

Mr Shah said Asif Zaheer, thought to be an expert in bomb-making, was the prime suspect so far as his direct involvement in the Sheraton Hotel bomb explosion had been established after “we recovered from him the registration book of the car (J-6560) used in the bomb blast.”