KARACHI, May 19: A police bomb expert told a special anti- terrorism court in Karachi on Monday that 140-150 kgs of high- powered explosives were used by the accused to blow up a bus carrying French naval engineers in Karachi on May 8, 2002,

Eleven French engineers and three Pakistanis, including a suicide bomber, were killed when the bomber ploughed an explosive-packed van into the bus outside the Sheraton hotel.

The French engineers were helping the PN built Agosta B-90 submarine.

The Anti Terrorism Court is holding trial of activists Asif Zaheer and co- defendant Mohammad Bashir inside the Karachi’s Central Prison.

They are charged with terrorism, use of explosives and conspiracy to murder.

The charges carry the death penalty. Both the religious activists have pleaded not guilty.

The police expert, Syed Aga Hussein Shah, told the court that traces of the same type of explosives used in the attack were later found on one of the defendants, Asif Zaheer.

The blast left a 15 inches deep and seven feet wide crater, he told the court.

Zaheer and Bashir have allegedly told interrogators they thought their targets were Americans and regretted that the victims turned out to be French.

The defence will cross-examine Shah when the trial resumes on May 21.

In a similar attack, allegedly by suicide bombers, 12 Pakistanis were killed outside the US Consulate, several blocks away from the Sheraton Hotel.—AFP