A district court in Karachi acquitted three Chinese nationals on Thursday of charges of committing cyber terrorism and ATM-skimming due to lack of evidence.

The FIA had detained Xu Zhuping, Zhang Qiaocheng and Zhong Shaowen and charged them with committing electronic crimes, cyber terrorism, fraud and forgery in different localities of Karachi in 2018.

District and Sessions Judge (South) Amjad Ali Bohio pronounced his verdict, earlier reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge wrote in his order that the prosecution failed to prove its case against the accused persons and the court was thus acquitting them of the charges by extending them the benefit of the doubt.

The judge also directed the prison authorities to release them forthwith, if their custody was not required in any other case.

Read | ATM users — beware of the skimmer

According to the prosecution, Qiaocheng and Shaowen were allegedly spotted under suspicious circumstances around an ATM machine installed at a Habib Bank Limited (HBL) branch on Abdullah Haroon Road in January 2018.

Later, the FIA officials captured them while allegedly trying to insert a skimming device at the said ATM machine "thereby committing unauthorised access to the critical infrastructure information system with an intention to cause damage to the public property", the prosecution added.

Separately, the court also acquitted Zhuping in an identical case of skimming an ATM machine of the Muslim Commercial Bank branch on Tipu Sultan Road.

According to the prosecution, the accused had "illegally accessed the consumers’ data and withdrawn Rs650,000 by using forged ATM cards in an unauthorised manner".