KARACHI, Dec 19: The Anti-terrorism Court holding a retrial of six Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al-Alami activists accused of plotting to kill President Pervez Musharraf on April 24, 2002 on Monday deferred the pronouncement of its judgment to Jan 5.

The six accused, Muhammad Imran, Muhammad Hanif alias Ayub, Muhammad Ashraf, Waseem Akhtar, Muhammad Jamil and Arsalan alias Sharib, have been charged with attempting to assassinate the president by parking an explosive-laden vehicle near Falak Naz plaza and blow it up with remote control. The presidential cavalcade was about to pass by and the accused were set to blow up the vehicle but the remote control did not work, foiling their plot, according to the prosecution.

In the course of the investigations, the police and law-enforcement agencies arrested Muhammad Imran and Muhammad Hanif, who confessed to their involvement in the plot during the interrogation, it claimed.

Special public prosecutor Mazhar Qayyum told Dawn on Monday that the ATC judge, Ghulam Ali Samtio, who is holding the retrial inside the Central Prison Karachi, had reserved the verdict in the earlier hearing after the prosecution and the defence concluded their arguments. He had fixed Dec 19 for the pronouncement of his verdict.

However, when the court assembled on Monday, the judge deferred the verdict to Jan 5.

The prosecution has based its arguments on the confessional statements given by Imran, Hanif and Ashraf. It insisted that the accused had given their confessional statements voluntarily before a judicial magistrate, and quoted them as saying that they, along with their other accomplices, had tried to kill President Musharraf after taking offence to his anti-Taliban and pro-US policies. It called for capital punishment to be awarded to the accused.

The defence side told the court that the confessional statements were taken under duress. It said that police had tortured the accused to force them to confess to the crime. It prayed for benefit of doubt to be given to the accused, maintaining that the prosecution story was cooked up, false and full of contradictions.

Earlier, an anti-terrorism appellate bench of the Sindh High Court set aside the sentences awarded to the accused by the ATC and directed the latter to hold a retrial.