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KARACHI, Jan 13: Judge Ghulam Ali A. Samtio of the anti-terrorism court on Saturday directed the home secretary to expedite necessary action for appointment of prosecutors for the trial of three top leaders of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Aalmi being charged with hatching a conspiracy to kill President Musharraf.
The proceedings of the conspiracy case against Aalmi chief Mohammed Imran, his deputy Mohammed Hanif and finance secretary Mohammed Ashraf have come to a halt for the past many days due to non-appearance of the special public prosecutors.
On January 12, the judge had put off the hearing on the request of the special public prosecutor of his court after he submitted that the home department had appointed a two-member team of special prosecutors for the trial.
However, the notification regarding the appointment of the special public prosecutors did not reach the court till Saturday.
Judge Samtio wrote a letter to the home secretary asking him to look into the matter personally and expedite necessary action towards the constitution/ appointment of team of prosecutors or in the alternate a direction may be given to Special Public Prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa to proceed with the case to avoid further delay.
The Aalmi leaders have been charged with hatching a conspiracy to blow up the president’s motorcade within the limits of the Airport police in April 2002. They were sentenced to a 10-year term by the then ATC-1 Judge Aley Maqbool Rizvi in the case on October 18, 2003.
However, the Sindh High Court set aside the conviction of the Aalmi leaders on an appeal by the convicts on November 10 last year and referred back the case to the ATC for retrial.
INDICTED: The same court formally indicted two accused for kidnapping a 10-month-old boy for ransom.
The judge directed the prosecution to examine its witnesses on January 18 after accused Khizer Hiyat and Shahzad denied the charges and pleaded “not guilty”. They were charged with the kidnapping of Abdur Rehman on July 10, 2006.
The kidnappers allegedly demanded Rs1 million for the release of the victim. However, they were tracked down by the police who recovered the abducted minor from their residence near Dalmia on the same night.
Meanwhile, the court also arraigned an accused for kidnapping an 11-year-old boy for ransom on July 17, 2006.
Kazim Raza, who allegedly kept the boy in his sister’s house in F.B` Area, pleaded not guilty.
Prosecution said the accused kidnapped the boy as he came out of Madrassah Khairul Amal. He allegedly called the family the next day and demanded Rs1 million for his release.
