ISLAMABAD, Aug 26: Five men including a soldier, are to be hanged for their role in an Al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf in late 2003, a military spokesman said on Friday. Gen Musharraf narrowly escaped when two suicide car bombers rammed his motorcade on Christmas Day, 2003, in Rawalpindi. Fifteen people were killed.

It was the second attempt on his life that month, and several soldiers, air force personnel and militants were arrested after the two attacks.

Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan named the condemned men as trooper Arshad Mehmood, and civilians Zubair Ahmed, Rashid Bhatti, Rashid Qureshi, Ghulam Sarwar and Akhlaque Ahmed.

“They were convicted in the assassination attempt on the president on Dec 25, 2003,” Sultan told Reuters. The date for executions have not been disclosed.

Another man was sentenced to life imprisonment while two more were given jail terms of 15 and 20 years, he said.

“The trial was held under relevant provisions of law and then they were given sentences,” he added.

Last week a soldier was hanged for his role in the first failed assassination attempt on Dec 14, 2003, when the president’s car passed over a bridge in Rawalpindi seconds before it was blown up.

The army maintains that no senior officers were involved and the principal planners were Abu Faraj Farj al Liby, the so-called Al Qaeda “number three”, arrested in NWFP in May and Amjad Farooqi, a Pakistani militant gunned down last September.

Musharraf was targetted by Al Qaeda after pledging support for a US-led war on terror following the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

Pakistani security agencies have caught hundreds of Al Qaeda suspects since and handed them over to the United States, and also arrested hundreds of Pakistani militants in crackdowns that gathered intensity after the attacks on Musharraf.—Reuters