KARACHI, July 24: An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday recorded statements of three prosecution witnesses in a case of hatching a conspiracy to kill President Gen Pervez Musharraf on April 26, 2002.
Judge Ghulam Ali A. Samtio of the ATC-1, who is conducting the trial in the Central Prison, had indicted the accused Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Hanif alias Ayub, Mohammad Ashraf, Waseem Akhtar, Mohammad Jamil and Arsalam alias Sharib on July 14.
They had pleaded not guilty and opted to go on trial. Special Public Prosecutor Niamat Ali Randhawa produced three witnesses in the case. One of the witnesses is Inspector Mohammad Hussain Khaskheli, who had registered the FIR (94/02) in the case.
The other witness is Mohammad Yahya, owner of the shop hired by the accused near Falak Naz Plaza on Sharea Faisal, while the third one is Mohammad Yaseen.
The accused are stated to be leaders and workers of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Aalmi.
Earlier, the court had fixed July 24 for recording the statements, but the process could not be initiated on the request of the defence counsel.
The court fixed Aug 2 for recording the statement of the other prosecution witness in the case. 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 duty to give information about Gen Musharraf’s arrival.
It was alleged that Kamran, who had positioned himself at a petrol pump near 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 devise 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 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.
It may be recalled that the accused were once indicted by ATC Judge Syed Aley Maqbool Rizvi on April 24, 2003. The court had awarded 10 years 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.