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Five sentenced to death for assassination plot

B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani soldier and four civilians have been awarded death sentence by a military court for their involvement in the December 25, 2003 attempt on the life of President Pervez Musharraf. Fifteen persons including policemen were killed in the incident when two suicide bombers rammed explosives-laden vehicles into Gen. Musharraf's motorcade on December 25, 2003 in Rawalpindi. It was the second attempt on Gen. Musharraf's life in a span of 11 days. A soldier linked to the first plot — the bombing of a Rawalpindi bridge on December 14, 2003, seconds after Gen. Musharraf's convoy passed — was hanged last Saturday. Director General of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), Shaukat Sultan said among the five sentenced to death in the second plot included a low-ranking member of the military. He was named as Naik Arshad Mahmood, and the civilians were as Zubair Ahmed, Rashid Qureshi, Ghulam Sarwar Bhatti and Akhlas Ahmed. Both attacks were allegedly masterminded by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network. Pakistani authorities in September shot dead local Al-Qaeda lynchpin Amjad Farooqi, a co-planner in the Christmas day attack. Maj. Gen. Sultan said another three persons convicted of involvement in the second plot have been sentenced to different jail terms.

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