Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Four get death penalty for plot to kill Musharraf
Agence France-Presse
Islamabad, October 4, 2005
A Pakistani military court on Tuesday sentenced four people to death and handed two others life terms for their role in a 2003 attempt to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf, officials said.
They were involved in a plot by junior Pakistani Air Force officials to kill Musharraf by blowing up a bridge in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, on December 14, 2003. Musharraf narrowly survived.
"Four junior officials have been sentenced to death and two others were given life imprisonment on Tuesday," a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.
An intelligence official also confirmed the judgment.
The assassination bid was the first of two in the same month. Key US ally Musharraf escaped unharmed because a hi-tech jamming device on the President's Mercedes had delayed the detonation of five bombs.
On Christmas Day 2003, two suicide bombers rammed explosives-laden vehicles into Musharraf's motorcade in Rawalpindi. Again he escaped.
Both attacks were allegedly masterminded by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, which opposed Musharraf's support for the US-led campaign to oust the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan in late 2001.
In August a soldier linked to the bridge blast plot was hanged, while five people -- a low-ranking Army official and four civilians -- were sentenced to death for the Christmas Day attack.
© HT Media Ltd. 2005.