KARACHI, June 3: An anti-terrorism court rejected a defence application on Tuesday that challenged its ability to try five accused charged with attempting to kill President Pervez Musharraf last year.

Judge Aale Maqbool Rizvi ruled the court had jurisdiction over the case under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) and rejected the defence plea that the matter was more a case of personal vendetta.

“The threat and conspiracy come under ATA and it is not a case of personal vendetta. Therefore, this case will proceed from June 7,” the judge said.

Public prosecutor Habib Ahmed did not expect it would take much time to conclude his case. “It’s a case of three or four hearings and out of the nine witnesses I may examine only six,” he said.

Defence lawyer Abdul Waheed Katpar decided not to challenge the verdict and declared he was “ready to proceed.”

The hearing will be held in the makeshift court inside Karachi’s central jail for extra security.

Defence lawyer had filed an application before the court seeking transfer of the case against the accused, who belong to the banned organization Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Alami, from the ATC to a sessions court. Police allege the defendants parked a Suzuki pickup truck on a busy commercial road, hoping to blow up Musharraf’ s car as he passed en route to a rally in Karachi in April last year.

The same vehicle was used in a June attack outside the US consulate. The five defendants, Mohammad Imran Bhai, Hanif Ayub, Arslan Sharaib Farooqi, Mohammad Ashraf and Wasim Akhtar, pleaded not guilty to their indictments last month.

Bhai and Ayub have already been sentenced to death for their roles in the attack on the US consulate that left 12 dead.—AFP\PPI