Anti-terrorism court acquits three suspects
Three men charged over the Danish embassy attack acquitted, prosecutors say they will appeal the verdict.
ISLAMABAD:
An anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi on Saturday acquitted three men charged over the Danish embassy attack. Prosecutors have, however, said that they would appeal the verdict.
“The court observed that the prosecution failed to prove the charges and acquitted the three accused men,” senior prosecutor Muhammad Tayyab said. “We will file an appeal in the Lahore High Court within the stipulated period of 30 days,” Tayyab said.
Six people were killed, including a Dane, and about 27 wounded when the car bomb exploded outside the embassy in June 2008. The bomb damaged the mission and the residences of the Indian and Dutch ambassadors, and almost destroyed a nearby UN agency office. The attack had come amid anger over cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), first printed in Danish newspapers in 2005.
Tayyab said that the prosecution had produced 32 witnesses in court, of whom two testified that they saw suspects Qari Ilyas and Shamsul Haq signalling the suicide attacker towards the target as they sat in a car. But he did not speak about the role of the third accused.
“The court had objected that during the identification parade of the accused men, the required procedure was not followed, which is just a technicality,” Tayyab said. He said that the suspects were arrested a few months after the attack in a separate case, and during questioning they admitted to their role in the Danish embassy bombing.
The alQaeda terror network claimed responsibility for the attack in a video and identified the suicide bomber as Abu Gharib al-Makki Kamal Salim Attiya al-Fudli al-Hadhli.
Courts have acquitted suspects in high-profile cases in other instances. In May, a court freed four men put on trial over the 2008 bombing of the five-star Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed at least 60 people, saying that the prosecution had failed to prove its case.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 26th, 2010.
An anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi on Saturday acquitted three men charged over the Danish embassy attack. Prosecutors have, however, said that they would appeal the verdict.
“The court observed that the prosecution failed to prove the charges and acquitted the three accused men,” senior prosecutor Muhammad Tayyab said. “We will file an appeal in the Lahore High Court within the stipulated period of 30 days,” Tayyab said.
Six people were killed, including a Dane, and about 27 wounded when the car bomb exploded outside the embassy in June 2008. The bomb damaged the mission and the residences of the Indian and Dutch ambassadors, and almost destroyed a nearby UN agency office. The attack had come amid anger over cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), first printed in Danish newspapers in 2005.
Tayyab said that the prosecution had produced 32 witnesses in court, of whom two testified that they saw suspects Qari Ilyas and Shamsul Haq signalling the suicide attacker towards the target as they sat in a car. But he did not speak about the role of the third accused.
“The court had objected that during the identification parade of the accused men, the required procedure was not followed, which is just a technicality,” Tayyab said. He said that the suspects were arrested a few months after the attack in a separate case, and during questioning they admitted to their role in the Danish embassy bombing.
The alQaeda terror network claimed responsibility for the attack in a video and identified the suicide bomber as Abu Gharib al-Makki Kamal Salim Attiya al-Fudli al-Hadhli.
Courts have acquitted suspects in high-profile cases in other instances. In May, a court freed four men put on trial over the 2008 bombing of the five-star Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed at least 60 people, saying that the prosecution had failed to prove its case.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 26th, 2010.