Court hearing: Three men formally charged for Karachi airport attack

KARACHI:

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday indicted three suspects associated with a banned outfit allegedly involved in carrying out an attack on Jinnah International Airport in 2014.

Charges were framed on Nadeem alias Burger, Asif Zaheer and Sarmad Siddiqi, who were taken into custody in October last year by the Crime Investigation Department (now Counter Terrorism Department). They have been accused of providing logistics and financial support to assailants who stormed the airport.

According to the police, Zaheer had also been involved in the 2002 Sheraton Hotel bomb blast, in which 11 French engineers and two locals were killed as a car laden with explosives hit their bus outside the hotel.

ATC-I directed the investigation officer of the case to produce the witnesses of the case on the next date of hearing on March 14 so the evidences could be recorded. There are around 98 witnesses named in the charge sheet of the case.

At least 27, people including security personnel and airport staffers, were killed in the attack on June 8 last year. All 10 attackers were also killed in a clash with security forces as the siege at the country's busiest airport continued overnight. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack prompting the Pakistan Army to carry out a major offensive - Zarb-e-Azb, against militants in North Waziristan.

Meanwhile, eight suspects - TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah, TTP spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid, Malik Mumtaz Awan, Asim Sharif, Abdur Rasheed, Akhtar alias Plumber, Iqbal alias Thekedar and Abdullah Baloch - have been declared as proclaimed offenders in the case. As per the court's order their properties have also been confiscated.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2015.