An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Tuesday handed down death sentence to 11 members of an al-Qaeda-linked militant group for attacking a top military general in 2004 in which 11 people were killed.
The attack by Jundullah (Army of Allah) group was a clear bid to kill Deputy Chief of Army General Ahsan Saleem Hayat, who at that time was the Karachi corps commander lieutenant general, court officials in Karachi said.
Hayat survived the attempt as he was being driven to work in the port city of Karachi but at least seven soldiers, three policemen and a passerby were killed in the firing in the city's posh Clifton area.
Pakistani officials say the Jundullah group is a new terror group, which has links with the al Qaeda, and that its members had been trained in the tribal Waziristan.
Anti-terrorism court judge Feroz Mehmood Bhati announced the verdict in the presence of all the accused who chanted slogans of Allah-o-Akbar (Allah is great) in the courtroom. The judge also ordered them to pay fines of $833 each and pay twice as much to the relatives of those killed.
The convicts' lawyers said they will challenge the punishment. Five other accused have been declared absconders in the case. Security was tight outside the courtroom.
Jundullah is one of the new and perhaps the fiercest of militant groups, which was behind the continued violence in Karachi in 2004. The group hit the headlines after the daring attack on the motorcade of the Karachi's Corps Commander.
It was the most serious attack targeting the military since the two failed assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December 2003. Jundullah was also involved in attacks on paramilitary rangers, police stations, as well as the twin car bombings outside the Pakistan-US Cultural Center in July 2004.
