Pakistan court acquits two over attack on French

[Coventina]

Source: AFP

KARACHI (AFP) — A Pakistan court Tuesday acquitted two men sentenced to death over a 2002 bombing that killed 11 French engineers, the highest number of Westerners to have died in a single attack in the country.

Asif Zaheer and Mohammad Rizwan, who allegedly belonged to Al-Qaeda-linked extremist group Harkatul Mujahideen al-Aalmi, were arrested in December 2002, seven months after the attack in Pakistan's financial capital Karachi.

In 2003, an anti-terror court convicted them on multiple counts of assisting the suicide attack, which killed 11 French engineers and three Pakistanis outside the Sheraton Hotel, and sentenced them to death and 50 years in prison.

A suicide bomber rammed a Toyota Corolla sedan packed with 140 to 150 kilogrammes (300 to 330 pounds) into a bus as it collected the Frenchmen from the hotel. They were helping Pakistan build its first locally made submarine.



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