Trial of bomb suspects in jail

The trial of three militants accused of masterminding the deadly bombing outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi, will be held inside prison because of security threat, a senior government official said yesterday.

"The trial will be held at the Karachi Central Jail because of security concerns," Mukhtar Ahmed, the home secretary of the Sindh province, told Gulf News.

The Sindh provincial government has issued a notification over the recommendation of the police, senior government officials said.

The three men, Mohammed Imran, Mohammed Hanif and Mohammed Ashraf, belong to a little known group called Harakatul Mujahideen Al Alami. They were arrested in July on charges of masterminding the June 14 consulate bombing that killed 12 Pakistanis and wounded more than 50 others.

During interrogations, the militants also confessed to making an unsuccessful attempt to kill President General Pervez Musharraf. The militants, along with their fourth accomplice, an inspector in the paramilitary Rangers, planned to blow up the motorcade of Musharraf. But luckily the explosives failed to detonate.

Yesterday, the police did not bring the three suspects for a scheduled preliminary hearing in the High Court in Karachi following the order, causing confusion at the hearing with the judge saying he had not been notified of the provincial government's decision.

Judge Aale Maqbool Rizvi scheduled a new hearing for Monday and ordered the superintendent of jails also to appear and explain why the suspects were not brought to court for yesterday's hearing.

Last month, the court issued non-bailable arrest warrants for the arrest of six other people wanted in the consulate bombing.

The judge has fixed August 19 as the date for the next hearing, defence lawyer Abdul Waheed Katpar told reporters outside the court.

They face charges of terrorism, conspiracy, attempted murder, murder and use of explosives.
A senior police official said on the condition of anonymity that there are reports that the aides to these militants might try to get them freed.

"Bringing the accused daily for hearing from jail to the court through congested and traffic-choked roads is risk," he said.

The high profile trial of British-born militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and his three accomplices in the kidnap slaying of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl was also held inside the jail.

The authorities shifted a prison in Hyderabad, 160km north of Karachi because of security fears. Journalists were barred from the coverage of the trial.

It was not immediately known whether the authorities will keep reporters out of the trial of militants who broke from the outlawed Harakatul Mujahideen group to form their old faction.
The Harkatul Mujahideen is a key guerrilla group fighting to end Indian rule in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Two of the accused – Imran and Hanif, the head of the organisation and his deputy respectively – admitted at a news conference last month to their involvement in the consulate attack and the plot to assassinate Musharraf.

They said their targets included U.S. interests in Pakistan, such as fast food chains McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

But last month, Imran told reporters in a hearing that he has been falsely implicated in both cases.

Religious hardliners are outraged by Musharraf's decision to support the U.S.-led war on terrorism in neighbouring Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

In recent weeks, there have been a series of attacks on minority Christians and foreign targets in Pakistan.