ISLAMABAD/KARACHI, 6 March 2008 — A Pakistani court yesterday sentenced an Al-Qaeda-linked militant to death over a 2006 suicide attack which killed a US diplomat and three other people in the southern city of Karachi, lawyers said.
Anwarul Haq was convicted by the anti-terrorism court on four counts in connection with the bombing outside the US Consulate in Karachi on March 2, 2006 — the eve of a visit to Pakistan by US President George W. Bush.
“The court found the suspect guilty in the incident and sentenced him to death on four counts,” public prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa told AFP.
The court also sentenced Haq to 85 years imprisonment and fined him 1.5 million rupees ($25,000) in connection with the 25 people wounded in the blast.
Another suspect, Usman Ghani, was cleared of all charges, Randhawa said after the closed-door hearing in Karachi’s central jail, adding that the prosecution planned to appeal. He said the two belonged to an Al-Qaeda-linked extremist group.
Pakistani authorities have already identified another militant, Raja Mohammad Tahir, as the bomber who rammed his explosives-laden car into a diplomatic vehicle, killing diplomat David Foy and three Pakistanis. Haq and Ghani were arrested in August 2006. Police at the time said they were linked to Jaish-e-Mohammad, an Al-Qaeda-linked outfit banned by President Pervez Musharraf.
Two months after the attack a statement posted on the Internet, purportedly by Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility. It was signed “Al-Qaeda of the Afghanistan Jihad (holy war).” In the last major attack in Karachi, 139 people were killed in a double suicide bombing on the homecoming parade of exiled former Premier Benazir Bhutto in October.
Meanwhile, investigators interrogated six people yesterday in connection with a suicide bomb attack on a navy college, the latest violence to hit the country.
Two suicide bombers attacked a navy college in Lahore on Tuesday, killing five people and wounding 14, the military said. Initially, officials said there was one bomber. A navy spokesman said the attackers drove to the rear gate of the college on a motorbike, and police said six people were being questioned as investigators focused on the bike.
“We have not detained or arrested anyone but are interrogating these people to find the owner of the motorbike,” said Chaudhry Masood Aziz, a police superintendent. Navy spokesman Capt. Akram Naqi said the severed heads and limbs of the attackers had been recovered.
Qadeer Khan Hospitalized
Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is suffering from cancer, was taken to hospital yesterday with fever and low blood pressure, his wife said.
Khan, revered by many in Pakistan as the father of its atomic bomb, has been held under house arrest in the capital, Islamabad, since an investigation was launched against him in 2003.
Khan’s wife, Henny, said her husband was apparently suffering from an infection but his condition was not serious.
“He had a fever. He’s been unwell since Friday evening and wasn’t reacting to antibiotics. His blood pressure is very erratic so we thought it would be much safer to take him to hospital,” she said.
A military spokesman said Khan had been examined by a team of doctors and would return home “in a couple of days.”
— With input from agencies
