KARACHI, Aug 2: An anti-terrorism court put off on Thursday the hearing of a case pertaining to a plot to kill President Musharraf after recording the deposition of two police officials as prosecution witnesses.

Gulam Ali A. Samtio, judge of ATC-1, who is conducting the trial in the Central Prison, fixed Aug 9 for the next hearing after recording the statements of Inspector Dawood Akbar and Sub-inspector Mumtaz

The court had indicted Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Hanif alias Ayub, Mohammad Ashraf, Waseem Akhtar, Mohammad Jamil and Arsalan alias Sharif on July 14, when the accused had pleaded not guilty. Later, the court recorded the statements of three witnesses, Inspector Mohammad Hussain Khaskheli, Mohammad Yahya and Mohammad Yaseen on July 24.

The accused are stated to be leaders and workers of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Aalmi. Co-accused Mohammad Jamil, Aamir, Naveedul Hasan and Habib Kamran are still at large.

According to the prosecution, accused Waseem Akhtar, a Rangers inspector, was assigned the task of giving information about Gen Musharraf’s arrival in the city.

It was alleged that Kamran, who had positioned himself at a petrol station near the Star Gate on Sharea Faisal, pushed the remote-control button several times but the vehicle did not blow up. The accused had allegedly rented out the shop in a fake name and accused Aamir used to sit in it.

According to the charge-sheet, Sharib had stuffed the vehicle with explosives, and Naveed and Jamil allegedly assembled the explosive device and its remote control.

It was alleged that the Rangers official had given information regarding the arrival of the president, and Mohammed Hanif, Imran, Jamil, Naveed, Aamir and Sharib had positioned themselves near the Awami Markaz to ascertain if the president’s motorcade had been blown up.

According to the prosecution, the Aalmi leaders during interrogation confessed that they wanted to kill President Musharraf for his anti-Taliban and pro-US policies.

The accused were once indicted by ATC Judge Syed Aley Maqbool Rizvi on April 24, 2003. The court had awarded 10-year rigorous imprisonment to Imran, Mohammad Hanif, and Mohammad Ashraf on Oct 11, 2003.

They were also fined Rs200,000 each and in case of non-payment they had to undergo an additional one-year imprisonment. Waseem, Sharib, Naveed and Arsalan were acquitted by giving them the benefit of the doubt. They had appealed to the Sindh High Court on Nov 10, 2006 against the verdict against them.

A two-member bench of the SHC comprising Justice Rehmat Hussein Jaffery and Yaseen Abbasi had again transferred the case to the ATC for retrial.