Pakistani court convicts five Americans for terrorism
By DPA, IANSThursday, June 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani court Thursday sentenced five Americans to 10 years each in prison on terrorism charges, a state attorney said.
All five men, ages 19 to 25, were arrested in December in Sargodha, a town in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab, days after they had arrived from the eastern US state of Virginia.
“The court found them guilty of plotting terrorist attacks, and every one of them has been given a sentence of 10 years,” state attorney Nadeem Akram Cheema said.
Cheema said all the defendants were also convicted of treason and sentenced to five years each on that charge as well as being ordered to pay a 70,000-rupee ($800) fine.
It was not immediately clear whether the two sentences would be served concurrently or consecutively.
The verdict was announced by an anti-terrorism court in Sargodha.
Two of the five Americans accused are of Pakistani origin, and the three others are of Egyptian, Yemeni and Eritrean descent. The families of the suspects reported them missing in November.
Pakistani authorities said they believe the men had planned to travel to Pakistan’s militancy-plagued tribal region along the Afghan border to get training to carry out terrorist action. The men denied the charges.
