ISLAMABAD, 26 September 2006 — The Supreme Court yesterday upheld death sentences for 12 soldiers and civilians accused in December 2003 bombings against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that killed at least 16 other people. A three-member bench of the Supreme Court in Islamabad upheld the sentences passed down by military courts, Chief Justice Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhry said.
The first attempt on Musharraf’s life was made in Rawalpindi on Dec. 14 when the Jhanda Cheechi Bridge was blown up with a remote-controlled device while Musharraf’s motorcade was passing over it. The bridge was destroyed but Musharraf escaped unhurt as the device exploded a few minutes after his motorcade crossed it. In the second attempt two suicide bombers rammed their vans full of explosives into Musharraf’s convoy killing 16 people mostly the president’s guards.
Earlier this year, a high court in Lahore had also rejected appeals by the convicts, on the grounds that it had no jurisdiction to hear cases already decided by a military court. “For the reasons to be recorded later on, the impugned order of Lahore High Court is maintained, consequently the appeals are dismissed,” Chaudhry said, reading a written verdict in the court in Islamabad yesterday.
