The right message

The conviction of five Americans by an anti-terrorism court in Sargodha on June 24 on charges of criminal conspiracy to carry out a terrorist attack on Pakistan or an allied country and funding a terrorist group should be welcomed, not least because it comes after the recent acquittal of the Manawan attack suspect, Hijratullah, by a similar court in Lahore. (In Hijratullah’s case, he has however been sentenced to 10 years in prison for arms possession. Also, the Lahore High Court took suo motu notice of the ATC court’s verdict and will hear appeals on it.) The five who have been convicted include two men of Pakistani origin and one each of Yemeni, Egyptian and Eritrean descent. The men had been charged with five separate crimes and found guilty on two. The court then handed down concurrent sentences of five and 10 years and a fine of Rs70,000 on each of them.

The case involving the five men generated considerable media coverage. Through their trial, they maintained their innocence saying that they had come to Pakistan to attend a wedding and wanted to go to Afghanistan for carrying out humanitarian work. However, in the past, the latter has often turned out to be a euphemism for participation in training camps run by al Qaeda or the Taliban. In fact, even a former Pakistani nuclear scientist, who was once arrested on charges of wanting to supply al Qaeda with nuclear weapons had said that he had gone to Afghanistan only for carrying out charitable work.

In this particular instance, one should also commend the investigation of the case since often in the past people widely believed to be involved in terrorist acts have been let off by the courts because of insufficient evidence presented by the prosecution. In this particular case, investigators told the court that instead of attending a wedding the men were planning to go to South Waziristan for receiving training. It seems, they were following the footsteps, quite literally, of Faisal Shahzad who just this week admitted before a court in New York to receiving weeks of training from Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan members in Waziristan. The conviction of these five men should help send a much-needed message to ordinary Pakistanis and to the rest of the world that Pakistan is serious about punishing terrorists.

Published the Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2010.