September 23, 2007	Sunday	Ramazan 10, 1428

RAWALPINDI, Sept 22: The anti-terrorism court No 2 here on Saturday reserved judgment on the bail application of Rashid Rauf, a suspect in the foiled plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners from the UK, till September 25.

The judge, Sakhi Muhammad Kahot reserved the verdict after hearing the arguments of both the defence and prosecution lawyers for three days.

The defence counsel, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, contended that the British national of Pakistani origin was not arrested from the jurisdiction of the Airport police as claimed by the police, but from Bahawalpur.

He said the charges of impersonation, cheating and carrying 29 bottles of hydrogen peroxide framed against Rauf, 26, were bailable and it was only police apprehension that he was carrying the liquid to make bombs.

He said first of all the liquid was recovered not from the custody of Rauf and secondly it was an ordinary material used by people with easy availability. He said it was later during the investigation that the police booked Rauf under the anti- terrorism and the explosive substance acts.

Public prosecutor Raja Abdul Qayyum argued that the accused had confessed to have conspired to make bombs during police investigations and was involved in the attempt to bomb the trans-Atlantic flights.

The defence, however, underlined the insignificance of confessions extracted by police during remands according to Pakistani laws.

Rashid was arrested from the Airport police area on August 10, 2006, and was tried in the ATC that acquitted him of the terrorism charges in December that year. The verdict was, however, suspended by Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench after the Punjab government moved the court in January 2007.